National Hospice and Palliative Care Month

Throughout the month of November, Scotland Regional Hospice will be joining organizations across the nation in hosting community activities which recognize National Hospice and Palliative Care Month (NHPCM). This year’s NHPCM theme is “meeting you where you are.”

For 37 years, Scotland Regional Hospice has helped provide interdisciplinary, supportive care to thousands of people in North and South Carolina, allowing them to spend their final months wherever they call home and surrounded by their loved ones. Our hospice team crafts plans of care that ensure pain management, therapies, and treatments all center on the patients’ and their loved ones’ goals and wishes. Hospice care also provides emotional support and advice to help family members become confident caregivers and adjust to the future with grief support for up to a year. 

"Our team provides safe, high-quality, compassionate care with the emotional and spiritual support that families need most when facing the end of life,” shared Kim Hammonds, executive director of Scotland Regional Hospice.  “Hospice care extends to wherever a patient calls home which is reflected in this year’s theme of ‘meeting you where you are’.  Whether it be symptom control, pain management, spiritual support, emotional support, or personal care, we bring that care to you.”

Each year, over one million Medicare beneficiaries receive care from hospices across the United States. When a patient is not eligible for hospice care, they may benefit from community-based palliative care, often offered by hospice providers. Palliative care is patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness also involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and facilitates patient autonomy through access to information and choice.

“It is an honor to be able to bring comfort care to the communities we serve,” Hammonds continued.  “We strive to improve the quality of life and help patients and their families make the most of the time they have together.  That is our mission and it is a privilege to join them on this journey.”

More information about hospice, palliative care, and advance care planning is available on Scotland Regional Hospice’s website at www.scotlandhospice.org or by calling (910) 276-7176.  You can also visit the National Hospice and Palliative Care’s (NHPCO) information and resource website at www.CaringInfo.org.