United Hospice of Rockland Provides Care, Comfort

This piece is the first in a three-part series profiling United Hospice of Rockland.

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End-of-life care can be a difficult time for many patients and their families.

Since 1988, United Hospice of Rockland has tried to ease the burden of those final days by providing care, hope, comfort and improved quality of life to individuals and their families facing serious illness. United Hospice offers support to such individuals and their families by trying to help them retain their dignity and hope while receiving care until the end. The organization provides care for residents of Rockland County and southern Orange County.

Amy Stern has been United Hospice's executive director since 1989. Prior to becoming director, Stern was the first social worker for its community hospice program. Today, she oversees a staff of about 100 and about 275 volunteers who provide care for people with a life expectancy of six months or less.

"It's a very special group of people who come to work for hospice," Stern said, who added most of the staff is comprised of veteran health care providers.

The type or care provided by the hospice includes nurses (most of whom are on-call 24 hours a day), home health aides, social workers, physicians, nutritionists and therapists (physical, respiratory, occupational, speech, music and massage). Care is provided for all ages. The median length of care time is 16 days, often because people delay coming to a hospice until near the very end of their life, Stern said.

Dennis Mesiano was one of those people.

The Suffern man's wife was dying from lung cancer in the spring of 2008 when her doctor first suggested hospice care.

"Like most people, I was very reluctant to go to hospice because I viewed it as the end and I didn't want to face that," he said. "My reluctance was based on ignorance. I'm sorry I was reluctant to go to hospice sooner."

The family discussed the option for about two weeks and finally met with a hospice official to talk about what the care would entail. The officials answered all of the Mesianos questions and made them feel very comfortable that hospice was the right choice, Mesiano said.

Mesiano's wife, Lorraine, received daily nursing care for her last month, and the family also received counseling and help from a spiritual advisor. Lorraine was very happy with the care she received and "her being happy made me feel so good too," Mesiano said.

He said he still receives counseling from hospice and to this day gets calls from the nurses who cared for his wife just to see how he's doing.

"It's an absolutely incredible organization and the people are wonderful," Mesiano said.

Like the Mesianos, most patients and their families have multiple needs, Stern said, so they receive a combination of services. The goal is to combine the care of managing the patient's symptoms with providing a better quality of life for whatever time they have left, she said.

United Hospice takes a team approach to the care with the nurses, social workers, bereavement counselors, spiritual care coordinators, home health aides and volunteers working together to coordinate care. It also focuses on the family, providing them with services such as individual and group counseling, if desired. That's important, Stern said, because not everyone has family, friends or church to help them through the grieving process.

"It's important for people to be able to express that grief and cope with that grief the best they can," she said. "Unresolved grief does result in things like depression."

Besides providing home care services, the hospice also works with eight area nursing homes to help provide care for their residents. Oftentimes, the hospice staff can provide additional care the nursing home can't because of its specialized staff, Stern said.

Some might think constantly caring for patients one knows are going to die soon would be depressing and discourage someone from entering such a field. That's not the case, Stern said. While the job sometimes can be sad, especially when a patient dies, the continual focus on making that person's last days, weeks or months as good as they can be is the reason the work can be rewarding, she said.

"Our staff goes home every day recognizing they've made a difference in someone's life," Stern said. "How many people leave their work every day feeling that way?"