|
About
Hospice
History
of Hospice FAQ(coming
soon) Welcome
Letter
Brattleboro
Area Hospice is an independent, community-based, non-profit
volunteer hospice organization. All of our services are free
of charge to anyone living in Southeastern Vermont or bordering
New Hampshire towns. Referrals to any of our programs can be
made by a physician, home health care provider, nursing home,
or family members.
Brattleboro
Area Hospice (BAH) was founded in 1979 by a group of community
members concerned that their dying and grieving neighbors receive
compassionate, appropriate assistance. BAH provides grassroots,
volunteer-staffed programs to supplement and provide alternatives
to the professional services utilized by dying and grieving
community members. We also provide education and outreach to
increase our community's understanding of and ability to cope
with the issues of death and dying.
According
to Hospice philosophy, until the moment of death people have
physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs. Our Hospice
Care Program addresses these needs and helps dying people live
as comfortably and meaningfully as possible.
Our culture
does not endorse many processes or rituals that help bereaved
people accept the painful but inevitable stages of grief; unresolved
grief can lead to serious, sometimes life-threatening physical
and psychological difficulties. BAH Bereavement Care Services
facilitate healthy adaptation to grief. Many people avoid thinking
about the cycle of life and death, and suggest that working
with the dying and grieving "morbid" and "depressing."
Our Education and Outreach programs seek to address this avoidance,
to increase acceptance of death and grief as natural aspects
of life.
Brattleboro
Area Hospice is one of less than 200 volunteer hospices left
in the United States. Although the hospice movement in this
country was originally volunteer-focused, today many agencies
offer complex medical services while neglecting the crucial
role of the volunteer. Yet the compassionate assistance of neighbors
helping neighbors during the difficult journey of terminal illness
and grief cannot be underestimated. Given the increasing elder
population in Windham County, Vermont and in the United States,
hospice volunteers are and will continue to be a vital component
in maintaining quality end-of-life and bereavement care.
Member
of:
National
Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
Hospice
Association of America
Volunteer
Hospice Network
Hospice
and Palliative Care Council of Vermont
National
Family Caregivers Association
United
Way of Windham County
Association for
Death Education and Counseling
Awards:
• In
May 1999, BAH won one of two Brattleboro Pastoral Counseling
Center Humanitarian Awards, which stated, "your organization's
selfless giving in a quiet unassuming way in a variety of activities
is worthy of our acknowledgment." This is the first time
a group, rather than an individual, won this award.
• In
September of 1994, BAH won one of 32 National Awards of Excellence
awarded by the National Hospice Organization for our community
education efforts.
• In
1992, BAH won the Vermonters in Volunteer Administration Award
for Program Excellence.
History
of Hospice
The word
“hospice”comes from the Latin word “hospes”
meaning to host a guest or stranger and can be traced back to
early Western Civilization when it was used to describe a place
of shelter and rest for weary or sick travelers on long journeys.
“Hospice”
was first applied to the care of dying patients by the founder
of the Dames de Calaire, Mme Jeanne Garnier, in Lyon, France,
in 1842. The Irish Sisters of Charity opened Our Lady's
Hospice in Dublin in 1879 and St Joseph's Hospice in Hackney,
London (1905).
The modern
hospice movement took root in the work of Dame Cicely Saunders
who founded St Christopher’s Hospice in London in 1967
after being inspired by a patient, David Tasma, whom she met
in 1948 when he was hospitalized with an inoperable cancer and
she, a former nurse, was working as a medical social worker.
The first
hospice in the U.S. was established in New Haven, Connecticut
in 1970, modeled after the St. Christopher Hospice. The work
of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, as reflected in her widely read
book “On Death and Dying” has been credited with “bringing
death out of the darkness.” Its exploration of ways to
improve the process of dying and consider the needs of patients
aided in the growth of palliative medicine. In 1983, the U.S.
federal government endorsed hospice care through Medicare legislation.
Home
l About Hospice l
FAQ l Welcome
Letter l Pathways Support
l Community
Education l Bereavement
Support l Links
l Newsletters l
Recommended Reading
Lending Library l Volunteer
l Donate Thrift
Store l Planned
Giving l Support
Groups l Conversations l Social
Events l Telephone
Address l E-mail
l Who's Who
|
