By ZACHARY MONROE
Director of Development & Community Relations
Hospice of St. Lawrence Valley

Throughout the month of November, Hospice of St. Lawrence Valley joined organizations across the nation hosting community activities in recognition of National Hospice and Palliative Care Month.

  For more than 30 years, Hospice has helped provide comfort and dignity to thousands of people in the North Country, allowing them to spend their final months wherever they call home, surrounded by their loved ones. hospice ensures that pain management, therapies, and treatments all support a plan of care that is centered on the person’s goals.

Hospice care also provides emotional support and advice to help family members become confident caregivers and adjust to the future with grief support for up to a year.

“Our dedicated Hospice staff, including nurses, home health aides, social-workers and chaplain, provided care to over 360 patients in 2020 with a total of 14,579 home visits.” said Ruth Fishbeck, Chief Executive Officer for Hospice of St. Lawrence Valley. “Our AIM program nurse practitioners cared for another 250 patients with over 900 Home visits.

As one hospice volunteer noted, “Someone asked why I spend time volunteering for hospice. It’s because they were there for my family at a difficult time in our lives, and because the staff provide the best care possible when you need it most. And I want to help other families get that same level of care.”

Hospice is unique in that it offers an interdisciplinary team approach to treatment. Caring for the whole person allows the team to address each patient’s unique needs and challenges.

Hospice also provides a variety of additional programs, including bereavements services, when grief comes to school and a long accredited “We Honor Veterans” Program.” This past Veterans Day, Hospice of St. Lawrence Valley partnered with two local businesses, White’s Flowers, and Little Italy-Canton to provide floral arrangements and a meal for over a dozen Veteran volunteers and Veterans currently under care.

Our AIM program also provides some of the best community-based palliative care. Palliative care delivers expertise to improve quality of life and relief from pain. It can be provided at any time during an illness – during and after treatment, from diagnosis on.

More information about hospice, palliative care, and advance care planning is available on the website at www.hospiceslv.org by calling the offices at (315) 265-3105 or on all social media platforms @hospiceslv