On June 28, the New York Times ran a story examining the contemporary debate surrounding the issue of hospice care and the decision to increase the funding available for hospice care. Some critics of hospice have expressed concern over patients staying in hospice for what they view as too long, given that it is care intended for terminal patients. Hospice, however, is at its best when patients and their families have sufficient time to adjust to the dying process and prepare for mourning, as healt care experts point out in the original NY Times report, and the following letters to the editor:
Re “Concerns About Costs Rise With Hospices’ Use” (June 28): In 1996, suffering from inoperable cancer, my father received hospice care in the last three weeks of his life from a nonprofit agency. The physical comfort those dedicated nurses and social workers gave him — and the emotional support they offered to the whole family, strengthening our own ability to care for him — was extraordinary, incalculable, life-changing. The thought that for-profit health care chains are cynically exploiting this model of care to fill their own pockets, and might even endanger Medicare funding for hospice, is beyond appalling. They are vandalizing sacred ground.
Anne Berrill Carroll
Manhattan
To the Editor:
Studies show that health care costs are far less for those enrolled in hospice at death compared to those who are not, and that hospice patients have a better quality of life. The larger concerns that need to be addressed are that only 41 percent who die are on hospice (only about 25 percent in New York State) and that too many patients are enrolled for a very short time, less than three weeks on average. When hospice use increases, as it should, greater cost savings will result.
David C. Leven
Pelham, N.Y.
The writer is executive director, Compassion & Choices of New York.
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Blue Skies Hospice is dedicated to bring quality hospice care to the patients and families in Illinois and Indiana.
