Hello, my name is Jim Sturtevant, Administrative Director of Transitions. I’m director of Home Health, Hospice, and Palliative Care here at Tahoe Forest Health Systems. I’d like to start off by talking to you a little bit about hospice.
People think they know what hospice is, but until you actually have a need for it, you don’t really delve into it. So I’d just like to talk about it briefly and give you a brief description of what we offer in our hospice services.
Hospice is basically for patients who have received a diagnosis that says they have the possibility of dying within six months. It doesn’t mean they will die within six months, but they’ve gotten to a point in their lives where they’ve done all the curative treatment that they can think of doing, and they’ve made a choice now to die with dignity. What we do is help that transition.
And what do I mean by dying with dignity? I mean dying in your own home setting, surrounded by loved ones. Any way that you choose to die is the way you will die, and you will die knowing that you have control of that last process of your life. I mean, we’re all born, we all live, we all pass away.
One of the main reasons I love my job so much is because my father died at 98 years old in my home. Before that, I was the inpatient director at Tahoe Forest Health System, and I was so profoundly moved by the services that my father received that I decided at that point that hospice was my calling. And it warms my soul, I’ll be honest, to tell you that I have been in a position now to provide to people exactly what my father received from this amazing group of nurses and physicians who support our hospice program.
So what does it mean? It means your own family members can call us and give us a referral. Your physician, if you speak with them and you consult and decide that you want to have hospice together at that point in your life, can also refer. The bottom line is we are here to support you. It doesn’t mean you give up hope. It means that you now have hope to have a beautifully dignified end to the wonderful life you’ve led.
And so that’s the way I like to describe hospice. It’s not an ending. It’s just a stage filled with compassion and love, and we relieve a lot of your stress and your anxiety related to this process for both you and your family.
If you want more information, please feel free to reach out to us at area code (530) 582-6378.
