Donor gifts make hospice patient wishes come true, help families
cope with grief
Send a link to a friend
[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.
[to top of second
column] |
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.
|