A Graceful Exit
Hospice helps patients die with dignity and loved ones cope with their loss.

Imagine this scenario: a well-intentioned father tries to comfort his children, ages 11 and 5, over their grandmother’s death by rationalizing that she died from lung cancer because she smoked. As logical as it sounds, that explanation created sheer terror in their young minds because their mother was also a smoker, and they were then convinced that they would soon lose her, too. The staff at TrinityCare Hospice works closely with patients and their families to ensure that such situations are avoided, which enables the patient to be more reassured about the family’s coping abilities and to enjoy quality time with them. It’s impossible to be completely at peace with your own passing if you are worried about the emotional turmoil you’re leaving behind. While grieving is normal, an increased fear of death in survivors can and should be avoided.

 
It’s only recently that attention has been so focused on survivors. Glen Komatsu, MD, director of Little Company of Mary Hospital’s Doak Center for Palliative Care and medical director of TrinityKids Care, explains that there is now a recognized psychiatric category called complicated grief. “There are survivors who just can’t get on with their lives,” he says. “They’re stuck in their anger or sadness to the point where they can’t function, which of course has huge consequences.”

 
It takes a special individual to tackle such situations on a daily basis, and it’s certainly not an easy task. Hospice social workers, for example, usually get involved in a case after the patient and the family are told that the illness is terminal. However, a single mother of three kids, ages 17, 14 and 7, couldn’t bring herself to break the news to her family and begged the social worker to intervene. “She just fell apart watching the faces when they were told that their mother was not going to get through this,” Komatsu relates. “What we can do is affect how people die, to make it a peaceful event. How people die makes a difference in how the people who survive grieve. If they see their loved ones die in comfort, it is much easier for survivors to think about their loved one and go through the grieving process.”

Hospice care includes the primary/referring physician, nurse, social worker, chaplain, home health aide, any necessary equipment, and palliative medications. The TrinityCare Hospice team covers all of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Family/caregiver support continues for 13 months after a patient’s death and includes support groups, memorial services, mailings, home visits, and phone calls — depending on each individual’s needs and grieving process.

“We have a lot of very dedicated people,” says Terri Warren, executive director of TrinityCare Hospice, “who truly come here because they feel a vocation or calling that is genuine within them to provide that kind of care to be with people at such a poignant time in their life.”   Continue »

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