Friends of Hospice undergoing change

Friends of Hospice is going through some changes, according to board members Rita Ackerman and Bob Ingalls.

A national corporation purchased the local hospice and now the Friends of Hospice, a nonprofit organization, is changing their role to work with the corporation.

“We’re re-inventing ourselves,” Ackerman said recently.

The new agency provider of hospice care, Gentiva, has assumed responsibility for some of the areas Friends of Hospice had traditionally supported.

Ackerman and Ingalls said this is a good opportunity for Friends of Hospice.

“Wherever the patient’s home is, hospice can be there,” Ackerman said.

“Our questions is, ‘How can we help?’” Ingalls said.

Annie Pillars of Garfield will be the new executive director, starting full-time next January.

“Our goal is to serve patients and make their end of life comfortable,” Ingalls said. “That’s still our mission.”

Because Friends of Hospice is no longer restricted by Medicare provisions, it can look at assisting patients from the start of prognosis instead of toward the end of the patient’s life, Ingalls explained.

Friends of Hospice doesn’t have medical staff, but it can help terminally ill patients and their families in other ways, Ackerman said.

“We offer basically someone to accompany them on their journey,” she said.

Counseling, bereavement programs and respite care are just some of the programs Friends of Hospice provides.

It also provides a Living Legacy program that actually records the family history of the patient, caregiver massage and other support, community education, enhanced training for people serving the terminally ill and the annual Tree of Lights Memorial ceremony.

With the changes, the board is exploring offering more services.

“We are expanding our purpose throughout Whitman County,” Ingalls said, although at this time the board is not sure exactly what shape that expansion will be.

Friends of Hospice has been serving Whitman County for almost 20 years.

It took several years and many hours of meetings by a group of interested residents from Asotin, Garfield and Whitman counties to create Friends of Hospice.

In 1998, the Southeast Washington Hospice merged with Whitman Medical Center and Tri-State Hospital in Clarkston. At that time, the Friends of Hospice, formerly called Friends of Community Hospice, became two separate entities: one supporting Tri-State Hospital and the other Whitman Medical Center.

Whitman Home Health and Hospice was sold to Family Home Care & Hospice in October 2007. Hospice and Friends of Hospice were able to come to an agreement to work together allowing Friends of Hospice to continue to support the hospice program in Whitman County.

Every year, Friends of Hospice has a Tree of Lights Memorial ceremony during the Christmas season to remember deceased loved ones. Names of lost loved ones decorate a tree in the Colfax library.