Donor gifts make hospice patient wishes come true, help families cope with grief

[May 09, 2013]  A check representing collective donor gifts of $8,332.21 from the Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation's Dr. Wayne J. Schall Hospice Fund was recently presented to the Memorial Home Services nurses who work with Logan County patients and their families.

The Light Up A Life and memorial contributions from local donors will help promote a bereavement support group and support the final wishes of local hospice patients.

Memorial Home Services is a not-for-profit affiliate of Memorial Health System and serves 14 central Illinois counties. Shelley Gray, R.N., and Jessica Spiedel, R.N., (pictured below) commute daily from Girard and Chatham to work with Logan and Mason County patients of Memorial Home Services. The two nurses do so because they "love the families, pharmacies, physicians and hospital in the Lincoln community."

From left: Shelley Gray, R.N.,
Jessica Spiedel, R.N., and Marty Ahrends, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation

As part of their daily routine, Gray and Spiedel visit hospice patients in their homes to help make their final days as pain-free and rewarding as possible. They also partner with ALMH case managers and Dr. Mary Bretscher's chemotherapy clinic to ensure that the transition to hospice care is as smooth as possible.

Gray says that the gifts passed along from the Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation will be used to support a new bereavement support group, which meets in the ALMH Steinfort Room the third Thursday of every month from 6 to 8 p.m.

Spiedel added that the gifts will also help them grant wishes for local patients as part of the Memorial Home Services Hospice Sharing Wishes Fund. Gray and Spiedel work with the Memorial Hospice team of social workers, chaplains and volunteers to get to know the patients and their desires, and then use the Sharing Wishes Fund to make those wishes a reality. Wishes granted to Logan County patients have included a ride in a hot-air balloon, a laptop needed to Skype with far-away family members, a hearing device, and a haircut and special dinner.

According Marty Ahrends, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation, ALMH started its own hospice program in the late '80s and named it in memory of beloved physician Dr. Wayne J. Schall. Even though the Schall Hospice at ALMH merged with Visiting Nurses Association of Central Illinois in the mid-'90s, the community continued to support the Schall Hospice Fund. More than $522,000 from 6,047 donors has been donated to the fund since then.

In 2004 the local hospice advisory group recommended that Schall funds purchase low-air-loss mattresses and other items that hospice patients would use in their homes. Later they approved the renovation of a hospice respite care room at the former ALMH facility and voted to use funds for pain medications that keep local hospice patients comfortable during their final months.

Gifts for the Schall Hospice Fund can be sent to the Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation, 200 Stahlhut Drive in Lincoln. For more information, contact Ahrends at 605-5006 or visit www.almh.org.