>>Hospice is about living.
How can we make this moment
as good as possible before
anything else changes?
We just are here for today to
make life worth living now.
>>I don't know what people
did without hospice.
And I have great
respect for Werner.
He actually died, his hospital
was right there on this ward.
I have great respect for
he insisted that he wanted
to die the way he thought
he should die at home.
And not taking drugs and
just be taken care of
until he expired.
>>There is a misconception
that the focus of hospice care
is on dying but really it
is about quality of life.
Join us today as we visit
Hospice of the Piedmont
to find out what this
important organization is doing
to help people with
terminal illness
live out their lives in comfort
with respect and dignity.
Come on.
Tell us, what is the mission
of Hospice of the Piedmont?
>>For 35 years now our vision
or our mission has
remained the same.
That no one would have
to die alone or in pain.
And that's no one.
Regardless of age, race,
what country you're from,
what your citizenship is.
>>Right.
>>So that's our passion.
>>It absolutely is.
It's definitely not about death.
It's about a person
who's been diagnosed
with a terminal illness
who has the right
to make decisions as
to how to live out
the rest of that time.
Usually prognosis of
six months or less
is what they're facing.
>>Right.
>>One lady told me,
you know she said,
"I haven't talked to my
daughter in 17 years."
So we made the phone calls.
In other words it's
really about living.
It's not about dying.
It's about living your
final days and weeks
and months to the fullest.
And when you do that you tend
to celebrate life in general.
>>Who does hospice work with?
Does it matter
where you come from?
Does it matter your
financial situation?
How does that work?
>>None of that matters.
There's no discriminatory
factor in hospice whatsoever.
We take ages 18 to
infinity at this point.
And it's just people who are
looking to have quality of life
who are not seeking
treatment any longer
or that treatment's
not available.
>>And who pays for hospice?
>>Hospice was
established back in 1983
through a Medicare benefit
but that doesn't mean
that you have to have
Medicare to have hospice.
Commercial insurances
will pay for hospice.
But again, financial
status is not an issue.
If you don't have money, if
you don't have insurance,
you're not turned
away from Hospice.
>>Talk about the
different places
that the patients are seen.
>>They are seen anywhere
that they call home.
It could be in their private
residence, their private home,
in assisted living,
a nursing facility.
I've even cared for patients
who lived in a hotel
and in a correctional facility.
>>And today we're here
at the Hospice House
so talk about the Hospice House.
>>Well, the Hospice House
has been here for 11 years.
It's a very, very special place.
It's as close as
you can get to home
and yet not be in
your own house.
It is very personal.
We have home cooked meals.
But it's a place where
you can have this,
where your memories and
your family can be family
instead of a caregiver.
It's just a very,
very special place.
>>I just thought of the
story that you told me
about the Hospice House,
and you were talking about
the great beds that
are in the rooms now
and where they came from.
Will you tell me that
story real quick?
About the gentleman?
>>Sure.
Well, we have the
best beds around
because of a generous person.
So this patient was
at our Hospice House
and he was a
professional organist.
And when our volunteer was
meeting with him he said,
"If only I could play
the organ one more time."
So we made arrangements with
the church across the street,
First Presbyterian
gets a shout out,
and he played for
about 45 minutes.
His two kids and
wife were there.
They were weeping.
I was weeping.
Everybody was weeping.
>>Oh.
>>And then he said.
"It's finished."
He's done.
He passed away
about a week later.
And he told his wife
before he passed away,
you know, this house was perfect
except the beds
were getting older.
And she said, "I wanna
buy you guys all new beds
"and you pick the ones you want.
"Get the best ones
you can find."
And that's how we got the
best beds in Charlottesville.
(all laughing)
>>I love that story,
I love that story.
Okay, you also have
an Education Center.
Let's hear about that.
>>A couple cool things
about that program.
We have, we do get
people donating money
to the education institute,
but the coolest thing I think
is we're getting young
doctors and nurses
who rotate through, chaplains
too, social workers even,
they rotate through our hospice
and they learn how do you
take care of the dying.
A critical skill in
medicine and nursing.
>>The work that I do with
hospice was a calling.
I was drawn to hospice
as another way.
When you're in the hospital
working as a nurse,
you see so much
pain and suffering
and this is a
wonderful alternative
because you can be in your home,
have your family
members around you
and not be surrounded by
all the bells and whistles
and everything in
a hospital setting.
>>A lot of the work that
I do as a social worker
is grief counseling.
So we're actually grieving
from the beginning,
straight through until something
happens and afterwards.
And a big thing
that's rewarding to me
is getting to work with families
and walking that
journey with them.
Grief is a very private emotion
but there's also this
process of mourning
and making that public.
And that's what
our hospice does.
We have support groups,
we have memorials,
camps for children and families.
And it's a way to
let it be known,
this was an important life.
We're gonna remember it.
And with the caregiver
we're looking at burnout
and preventing that tiredness
and that overwhelmed feeling
because they're going on all
cylinders 24 hours a day.
>>My role as chaplain
is to help them identify
what their spirituality is
and how does their
spirituality help them
through the challenges of
dealing with a terminal illness.
>>You have a lot
of great programs.
Let's talk about the
Children's Center.
That's new in the
last couple years.
>>So it's the
center for children.
It has two parts to it.
One is called Journeys.
The Journeys is the Children's
Bereavement Program.
And it is so cool.
I mean we have camps that
go on during the year
where children come
who have lost a brother
or a sister or a mom and dad.
>>Right.
>>By the end of the day,
playing games, hiking,
climbing on ropes you
know they've realized,
okay, you know this is sad
but I'm not the only one.
>>Yeah, that's huge.
>>You never wanna
to be the only one.
>>Oh, that's huge.
>>It allows a child
to express themselves
the way they need to
express themselves
with dealing with grief.
And that's what makes
it so wonderful.
>>And then the other
part of the children's--
>>Is Piedmont Kids.
>>Right.
>>And we have art therapists.
But mainly Piedmont Kids is
about a supportive care program
for children now who are dying.
For children who have
less than six months.
We work with UVA and their
Palliative Care Program on this.
And it's a new program
just starting up.
And so that's great
for our community
that we can have
that full continuum.
>>You also have a Grief and
Loss program at the Center
for people dealing
with grief and loss.
>>This is a very
special place also
because there, whether
you're on hospice or not
if you've had loss of any type,
you know we're there to support.
If you're a young man
we have breakfast.
We have meetings for widows.
We have meetings
for older ladies.
In fact we even started one
if you've lost your pet.
>>Oh.
>>Yeah, so that
center can really,
because you know there's so,
in fact there was a study
in the Journal of
the American Medical
which found that if a
patient came on Hospice
the chance of their spouse
dying in the next year
was remarkedly reduced
because of the care
before the death and after.
It makes a big difference.
>>I came to the
university in 1963
and Werner was the architect
and I was the librarian
and we both were Germans
and we both enjoyed
our German culture
and had the experiences
of World War II behind us
and loved music and
art and traveling
and so we really were a pretty
ideal couple I would say.
Werner got diagnosed
with prostate cancer
in April of 2014.
And the wonderful things is
that these hospice nurses
and the staff became
so fond of Werner
and this give-and-take
was extremely important
for his recovery and for
basically making the end
of life phase easier
for him and for me.
And I'm eternally
grateful for that.
>>With Mr. Sensbach, I really
got to know him as a person.
What he liked to do,
what his interests were,
what his life was about.
Where he'd come from,
his political beliefs,
his spiritual beliefs.
We really talked
about so many things
in the course of my visits
that you make a personal
connection with people.
You get really attached.
>>So we were seeing
a patient who was 21
who had colon cancer.
And when I talked to the dad,
he was just weeping
about this situation.
And he said to me, "Well there's
one more thing Dr. Avery,
"my son won't talk to me."
Well I went in to see the
patient, this young man
and his two brothers were
in the room with him.
And I did my medical
stuff, examined him,
and finally I said,
"You know your dad says
"you're not talking to him."
And Terri, he looked me right
in the eyes and he said,
"I hate that SOB."
>>Okay.
>>Ah!
He felt his dad
had been abusive.
My staff wasn't convinced
but the dad was sort
of a tough guy in
charge, maybe fearful.
Clearly loved the son.
But who we worked on
was the tough guy.
All of them, doctors, nurses,
social workers, chaplains.
And there came a point
when he came to his son
and said, "Son,
please forgive me."
And the patient, the
son ran across the room,
jumped on his dad's neck and
said, "Dad, please forgive me."
That's what hospice is about.
>>Well, and you also, a lot
of people get
involved with hospice.
You have, you have a 5K race
where people get involved
and that's a big
fundraiser for hospice.
You have a butterfly release.
And volunteers, you rely
quite a bit on volunteers.
So, how do people get
involved if they want
to be a part of hospice?
>>They just need to pick
up the phone and call us.
We have a huge thriving
volunteer department.
We love our volunteers
and we do depend on our
volunteers quite a bit.
>>Yeah, almost 20 percent of
our care is done by volunteers.
And our community
has been so generous.
If you took away our volunteers
and you took away our donors,
we would like be gone in a year.
>>Yeah.
>>So we are, we totally,
our community has been so
gracious and generous to us.
So I have to pinch myself every
day and say this is amazing.
>>I think the most
rewarding thing
is letting people
know that they have
realized whatever dream
they had for end of life.
That they wanted to
have an art exhibit
or wanted to publish a
book or finish a painting
or take a trip to the
beach or Las Vegas
that those things are
possible even with Hospice
and we make that happen.
>>Gilda Radner talked
about delicious ambiguity.
That all poems don't rhyme,
all stories don't have a
beginning, a middle and an end.
That having a terminal diagnosis
doesn't make your life
any less meaningful
than it was the day before
you got that diagnosis.
(upbeat music)