This year thousands of Americans will be diagnosed with a terminal illness. Grinnell Regional Hospice is here to help you discover the medical, emotional, and spiritual services available to terminally ill patients and their families.

Grinnell Regional Hospice can assist when patients and their families are facing decisions on how to live the rest of life when a cure seems unlikely. Hospice offers an option that provides patients and their family’s support, comfort, compassion, and dignity.

Hospice care

• Allows the patient to retain control as decisions are made with the patient, family, and the hospice team with each contributing their knowledge
• Attends to the whole person, addressing medical, social, and spiritual needs
• Focuses on pain and symptom control that can then allow the patients and their families the opportunity to use their energies to focus on desirable activities
• Provides emotional support by encouraging open communication, life review, death preparation, and meeting spiritual needs
• Enables each person to live the last weeks and months of life as fully and comfortably as possible, with dignity
• Accepts death as a natural part of life, seeking neither to hasten death nor to prolong the dying process
• Provides bereavement support for families for up to one year after the death

The Hospice team includes:

• Nurses who assist with physical needs in the patient’s home. The nurses are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They assist and support the patient’s caregiver as needed to help them provide for the patients needs.
• Social workers who assist the patient and family cope with the changes that occur when dealing with terminal illness.
• A chaplain who provides expertise in spiritual issues that may occur at end of life.
• Home care aides who assist with personal cares and light housekeeping up to seven days per week
• Volunteers who have received specialized training that enables them to provide companionship to patients and respite to caregivers
• A medical director who oversees and guides patient care
• Pharmacists who review medications and provide knowledge regarding medications
• A respiratory therapist who assists with knowledge of respiratory illnesses, use of medications, and techniques to improve patient’s breathing
• A dietitian who reviews each patients dietary patterns and provides suggestions to maintain or improve appetite
• Massage therapists who provide massage therapy for patient comfort.
• A director who oversees the daily operation of the hospice team

Hospice is also able to consult with physical therapy, occupational therapy, a wound/ostomy nurse, infection control, and an acupuncturist to provide patients with comprehensive care.

Hospice is able to provide patients with medical supplies such as beds, walkers, wheelchairs, and other supplies as needed.

Hospice is a Medicare and Medicaid benefit; plus most private insurance companies provide a hospice benefit. Services provided by hospice that relate to the terminal illness are covered by these benefits.