Covenant Hospice Looks For More Walnut Hill Area Involvement

February 8, 2008

Covenant Hospice currently serves about 100 patients in north Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, and they want to increase public knowledge and support for the organization’s programs in the Walnut Hill area.

cary.jpgSally Cary (pictured left), volunteer services manager for Covenant Hospice, told the Walnut Hill Ruritan Club Thursday night that she wants to hold several public meetings at the club’s Walnut Hill Community Center. Those meetings will be to educate the public about hospice care and allow members of the Walnut Hill and surrounding communities to become involved with the program.

“We take care of people in life ending situations,” she said. When a doctor decides that a patient is terminally ill, a hospice case manager is brought in. Then a team is assigned to that patient, a team that includes doctors, nurses, home health aides and volunteers.

“Those volunteers are important, and that is where you can become involved with hospice,” Cary told the Ruritan Club members. Volunteers do everything from providing companionship to patients, to running errands to mowing the lawn for the terminally ill.

All services provided by Covenant Hospice are free to the patient and family. They do bill private insurance and various government programs like Medicare. But if the patient has no insurance or government assistance, all Covenant Hospice services are free.

“It does not matter to us if you can pay or not,” Cary said. “We take everyone. There is never a cost to the patient or family.”

Covenant Hospice’s services are not limited to the elderly, but persons of any age facing end of life situations. Their current patients in the area include two children.

The program also provided bereavement specialists to families, not just of the terminally ill, but even to the families of accident victims.

“We are there, and we will always be there to help families through their situation,” Cary said.

Covenant Hospice is also actively involved at the Century Care Center in Century where they hold programs where nursing home residents often make items for hospice patients.

Cary said the Walnut Hill Mennonite Church currently has a project underway to provide lap blankets for hospice patients.

For more information on Covenant Hospice and the group’s services, visit them online at www.covenanthospice.org or call 1-800-541-3072.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News