University Daily Kansan, November 15. 1982
Page 9
Hospice program consoles dying patients, families
[By VICKY WIL]
Staff Reporter
Death is one of the most frightening experiences a person faces, but with the help of Hospice volunteers a patient can be saved very few weeks of life can be less painful.
The Hospice program offers two services — support to the patient while he is alive and bereavement care to him after the family member is dead.
The program will receive special attention this week, during National Biotech Week.
"People who have a misconception about Hospice think that it means death and they associate negative, fearful connotations with it," said Jay Memmott, director of the Lawrence Hospice program.
"In Hospice we're trying to put the care back into the health care system and we're trying to restore and make caring a central and an integral part of the health care system and to do it on people's terms, not ours," he said.
BUT THE PROGRAM offers hope to
BUT those who are dying, and to their
future.
Hospice workers offer people hope that they have the power to make their life better, even though they are in a bad situation, Mammott said.
"We try to work that very delicate
"They may end up dying but they may have three more months where if they did not have hope they wouldn't have lived that long."
balance of not giving people false hope, but we don't want people to give up hope either because hope is that quality of being a glives people more time." he said.
When a life-threatening situation strikes someone, unresolved issues surface which, if not dealt with appropriately, can lead to serious problems for the family, he said.
AFTER A FAMILY member's death, some people divorce, lose their jobs, and have personal conflicts. Hospice providers must address these problems and work to prevent them.
"It's neat to see our volunteers provide support to people, especially after a loss. Friends and relatives pull away after four or five weeks, and the person wakes up one morning and they're all alone." Memmott said.
That is when a volunteer may call and ask the person out for dinner or just go over to the home to look at pictures and talk about memories, he said.
Mayetta Rees, social welfare graduate student, said volunteers provided an important service by staying with the patient so a family member could get out of the house for a couple of hours. A neighbor's family could have a good night's sleep.
RESPITE CARE is valuable to the
"I think it can be better if the family member dies at home for the family members, because they have the opportunity to make their loved one comfortable, they can go about assessing their own grief about the situation by actually doing things," she said. "In a hospital things are more sterile and I think conversation flows a little better at home."
family members because they are in a very energy draining situation, she said.
Hospice workers try to help people disengage from the program as quickly as possible. But if a person needs help as year after a loss volunteers are available to work with them, Mammott said.
Rees said even though the family was viewed as a unit, Hospice does not always work with each family member individually.
"Sometimes I'm closest to the person who has the illness and sometimes I'm closest to family members. You have to know that when you are ill, you is and who has whom for support."
MEMOHTT SAID it was important for a dying person to have someone to talk to.
"Sometimes a person who is dying gets shut-off by the rest of the family. The family members say, 'Let's not talk about those dreary things, let's talk about cheer, happy things.' It's a natural response, but then the guy gets
left in a lurch because he wants to talk and people are scared to death to hear
People overuse the cliche "death with dignity," Mennott told. Dignity connotes dying by a standard, but dying should be a very individual experience. Some people accept it calmly and some don't, believing dying right up to the very end, he said.
THE LAWRENCE Hospice program is a branch of the Visiting Nurses Association. Family physicians refer individuals to the VNA and a nurse visits the family to evaluate whether H hospice care is needed. Sometimes physicians state on the referral that H hospice care is desired.
Then one of the three social workers in the Hospice program visits the patient and family and talks with them about budgeting their time and managing business to see to what extent Hospice needs to be involved.
The spiritual aspect of their life also is assessed. If they do not have a minister and want one, Hospice helps arrange for one.
The Lawrence Hospice Program started seeing people last May. There are now 10 families in the program; six are under direct care - care and support for the patient - and four families are under bereavement care.
MEMMOTT SAID he saw Hospice more as a part of health care in the community.
chance to die in their homes with their paintings; their junk and their clean-
The Lawrence program has 21 volunteers and others are waiting for training, but Mammotm said training was only offered twice a year.
Connie Tilden, executive director of Topka Hospice Inc., said that Hospice has grown in Kansas over the past 10 years and is now functioning or formulating ones.
In the United States there are 853 programs, a 200 percent increase in two
Tilden said the program currently is researching accreditation and standards to comply with medicine requirements for reimbursement.
HOSPICE IS different from home health care services, Tilden said, because Hospice spends more time working with the family and the organization of emotional support, while home health care rests the medical needs of the patient.
Each Hospice program is organized differently, she said. In small communities the group may be all volunteer without any paid staff.
Patients in the program do not have to be older people or have cancer. Rees Kee, a pediatrician, said that the program is designed for
"Hospice tries to educate the community as to what dying is about." **Therapist**
referrals to people who are in the later stages of their illness.
PEOPLE WORKING in the program find positive and rewarding experiences from their association with families.
Rees said, "This is a very significant time in a person's life and to be a part of that is very fulfilling for me. It's an honor to be included and allowed to participate in someone's dying and the family's grief.
"As you work with families and dying people they can really teach you some valuable things about living and about death," she said in your life and not keeping grudges.
FOR VOLUNTEER Judy Kimmel, associate professor of occupational therapy, the Hospice concept was based on research been aware of for along time, she said.
"It's a concept I really believe in, enhancing the last weeks of a terminally ill person and offering help to the family is important," she said.
There are difficult parts working with a dying person and his family, too, Rees said.
"I think the hardest part for me is just knowing what level of acceptance they are in and being in-tention to that so you can be confident, but not too uncomfortable for them," she said.
Broadcaster urges rule change
Staff Reporter
By VERONICA JONGENELEN
Staff Reporter
Broadcasters should lobby for reforms to correct the inequalities between the public service capabilities of newspapers and the electronic media, the president of a national broadcasting group said Friday.
Edward Fritts, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, spoke to more than 100 broadcasters, students and faculty, detailing problems that broadcasters face in trying to serve the public.
Part of the problem is the fairness doctrine and regulations of political science.
"WHAT THESE things have led to instead is the tendency of broadcasters to stick to the bland in programming to
The fairness doctrine, a regulation of the Federal Communications Commission, requires that stations seek out and air opposing viewpoints on controversial issues. For political broadcasts, the FCC requires stations to provide a candidate for political office with air time equal to any an opponent receives beyond the coverage of news events.
defend against government suits," he said. "We feel we must be free of these rules which interfere with the free flow of news to the public."
Fritts cited recent election coverage as an example. The public was inundated by advertising without having heard from the candidates or opinions from the electronic media.
He said that if those people read newspapers, though, they would have seen endorsements for several candidates.
"The upshot of this is that the public relies more on newspapers for endorsements," he said.
THE PRESS always has enjoyed the freedom of full opinion, but some people feel that broadcasters should not have this same right. he said.
"As journalists, broadcasters should be allowed the editorial discretion to see which of those candidates the public should know more about," he said.
Support for this position comes from newspapers that are entering the telecommunications age, such as those entering the cable market, he said.
In addition to the speech, Radio-TV Film faculty and students gave the Alumni Honor Citation and Grover
William Harmon, founding partner and chairman of the board of Harmon True Prutti, an advertising and public relations agency, received the alumni award for broadcasting for broadcasting of Stauffa Communications Inc. received the Cobb award.
The scholarship, which a student in the RTVF sequence usually receives, has fallen into disrepair in the past few years, Harmon said. To build the fund, Harmon offered a check to Bruce Linton, professor of journalism and media at New York University in the form of what he called the "For One Hell of a Good Teacher" award.
IN ACCEPTING the award, Harmon challenged both the alumni of the William Allen White School of Journalism and those in telecommunications fields now to revitalize the RTVF alumni scholarship fund.
Linton said only that the amount of the check was one of "substantial" payment.
Cobb Award for Broadcasting Service at the luncheon.
Eight other telecommunications executives spoke about different facets of the Expanding Dimensions and Challenge in the Telecommunications during the Telecommunications Day.
BURGLARS STOLE $500 worth of stereo equipment Saturday night from a car parked in the 2000 block of 20th Street, police said yesterday.
BURGLARS STOLE $710 worth of stereo equipment and 30 cassette tapes Saturday night from a car parked in the 1100 block of Highland Drive, Lawrence police said yesterday.
On the record
BURGLARST STOLE A $480 cassette stereo Saturday night from the 2400 block of West 25th Street, police said.
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