From left: Shelley Gray, R.N.,
Jessica Spiedel, R.N., and Marty Ahrends, executive director
of the Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation
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Donor gifts make hospice patient wishes come true, help families
cope with grief
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[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.
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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 above) 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."
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.
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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.
[Text from file received from
Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital]
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