The Muse

When speaking with family and friends who have recently lost a loved one, Frederick Health Hospice Executive Director Carlos Graveran says he often hears the same lament — they wished they had called hospice sooner.

Many patients and their loved ones are initially frightened by the idea of end of life care and wait until weeks or even days before the passing to utilize services. “However, patients seem to have a much better experience once hospice is on board and that fear of what is going to happen to them goes away,” Graveran says. Hospice care works to avoid unnecessary hospital stays so a patient may pass comfortably in their own home or nursing/assisted living facility. For those in their last weeks needing 24-hour care, the Kline Hospice House in Mount Airy offers a peaceful home like setting.

Hospice staff help streamline medications, provide palliative equipment as well as offer visits from clinical staff, volunteers and chaplains. Graveran explains that “the patients that have the best experience with us actually have been the ones that have been on hospice the longest. We find the families truly benefit emotionally, spiritually and mentally from having had hospice care.”

Extensive support follows the family for more than a year after the patient passes away through a number of bereavement programs. Grief support groups as well as individualized counseling sessions are available to everyone in the community even if a loved one did not utilize hospice’s services. “It can be a tremendous resource and aide in helping them to recover and move on with their lives,” Graveran says. “To feel a sense of closure that is otherwise more difficult to come by.”

Pictured: Carlos Graveran, Executive Director and Dr. Mary McDonald, Medical Director