Focus on hospice care during November SUN-B meeting

Hospice care was on the agenda as representatives of Calvary Hospital were on hand during the Senior Umbrella Network of Brooklyn (SUN-B)’s November 19 meeting at the Norwegian Christian Home to elaborate on end-of-life care during National Hospice in Care Month.

“This is such a critical and important issue,” said SUN-B President/Chair Vicki Ellner.

“I’ve been a nurse at Calvary for 32 years. The reason I stay there is because to me it’s probably the best quality end-of-life care one can have,” said VP of Community Patient Services of the Calvary Hospital Hospice Program Nancy D’Agostino.

Calvary Hospice has a 200 bed in-patient facility in the Bronx as well as a 25-bed location at Lutheran Medical Center here in Brooklyn. It also cares for 350 patients throughout the metro area at home through the Hospice at Home program.

“Having done this for so many years, it is an option for people to make most of the time,” continue D’Agostino. “It really is an opportunity for us to provide the best of what we can for patients.”

Tony Susi, director of supportive services at Calvary Hospital’s Hospice Program, also spoke. “I always said to people that hospice is not really about death. Yes, we work with dying people,” said Susi, who has worked at Calvary for 25 years, “but I want to emphasize that it’s about life. It’s about living life as best as can be in the face of life-threatening illness.”

The speakers also wanted to stress that hospice care doesn’t mean the abandoning of medical care. “We keep people comfortable in their own homes. Hospice is about eliminating anxieties,” said Susi. “The reality is that we will all face life-threatening illness. It’s not, will you die? It is how you die. It’s not just medical. The main focus is physical and alleviating pain.”

Hospice services also include healing wounded relationships as well as provide a priest or rabbi if needed. “We want to cover all bases,” said Susi.

The title of the meeting was “The Future of Hospice: Opportunities and Challenges.” D’Agostino discussed the motivation behind the title. “One may ask how you fit the word opportunities in with hospice,” she said. “But once people have gone through the process of hospice care and quality end-of-life care, they realize it turns over the decision-making to the patient and to the family for them to define for themselves what quality end-of-life means.”

For more information on future SUN-B meetings, visit www.sunb.org. And for additional info on Calvary Hospice Care Service, visit www.calvaryhospital.org.