Hospice by the Sea Begins its 4th decade in Service to Families in Palm Beach and Broward Counties

Hospice by the Sea’s roots run deep in Palm Beach and Broward counties. Started back in 1978 by a small group of citizens in Boca Raton offering hospice care to 17 families, today Hospice by the Sea’s team of 460 employees and 398 volunteers provide hospice care, palliative care and caregiver, bereavement and home health agency services to more than 5,000 patients each year in Palm Beach and Broward counties.

The volunteers that founded Hospice by the Sea, Florida’s second-oldest hospice organization, believed that all of those dying should be afforded the simple gifts of comfort and dignity. This belief has not changed: Hospice by the Sea’s mission today is to bring patients and families throughout Broward and Palm Beach counties the most skilled, compassionate, and culturally-sensitive care and support possible. Its doors are open to people of all ages, all illnesses, and all walks of life. Everyone seeking services is welcomed, regardless of their ability to pay.

This year, as Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance reimbursement for services has become challenging, and as our struggling economy has forced more families into the ranks of the uninsured, Hospice by the Sea has not wavered in its dedication to serve everyone in need of end-of-life care. To insure this goal, Hospice by the Sea Foundation was created solely to support the mission of Hospice by the Sea. The foundation’s efforts will focus on funding non-reimbursable programs and on a capital campaign.

As Hospice by the Sea faces the financial challenges of the economy, the quality of patient care has remained excellent, even while the patient census dramatically increased. The September 2008 census of 458 hospice care patients was 22 percent higher than September 2007.

Many people do not realize that 90 percent of Hospice by the Sea’s patients are at the place they call home, not a hospice inpatient care center. Each year, Hospice by the Sea’s nurses, CNAs, psychosocial and spiritual care staff and volunteers care for thousands of home-care patients scattered from Tequesta, Fla. in Northern Palm Beach County to Hallandale, Fla. in Southern Broward County – a distance of 75 miles. Just as impressive, the area served by Hospice by the Sea’s home care teams – Palm Beach and Broward counties – is larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

As the quality of Hospice by the Sea’s service continues to increase, so has the breadth of its programs which continue to expand and evolve to meet the dynamic needs of the community they serve. In 2008, Hospice by the Sea added holistic, complementary therapies (Reiki, Healing Touch, and music therapy) to help patients, family caregivers and staff re-energize and avoid compassion fatigue. They have also packaged years of home care knowledge in an instructional DVD for ALL family caregivers to boost their self confidence and keep them safe while working with a bed-bound or infirm loved one. Plus, they have committed staff, training, and educational resources to lay the foundation for hospice care for AIDS patients in Ghana through the Matthew 25 Project. (matthew25houseghana.org).

This November, National Hospice and Palliative Care Month, Hospice by the Sea remembers the handful of volunteers, nurses and physicians who brought compassionate hospice care to Palm Beach and Broward counties 30 years ago, and salutes the staff and volunteers who continue its founders’ mission.