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Yahoo!While the nation grapples with healthcare reform policies, one Santa Barbara agency looks past the fiscal frenzy to provide free services for community members in need.
Since 1975, Hospice of Santa Barbara has assisted individuals through times of grief and hardship without requiring insurance or a surfeit of fees. Executive director Steve Jacobsen said that services provided for 300 or so people each month does not draw funding from the county or the state.
“We’re supported by the community of Santa Barbara with donations,” said Jacobsen. “People contribute to us, and when they realize that everything we do is for free, they feel really good because they know it’s going directly to serve [others].”
Although Jacobsen said the hospice does not provide direct medical services like some others, they partner with visiting nurses and hospitals, and help those in need find good resources. However, Jacobsen said Hospice of Santa Barbara focuses most heavily on the wishes of the individual in various medical scenarios, such as being “hooked up on machines, with no hope of recovering.”
“We encourage people to think about, what they would do in that situation,” said Jacobsen.
Regardless of faith or personal preferences, the hospice not only helps people with their living wills, but also provides a dozen different grief support groups, several hospice workers who travel as far as Carpinteria and Gaviota, as well as personal counseling. And where medical analysts and Washington politicians toss medical jargon back and forth, this area agency deals with and explains relevant terms in its free End of Life Planning program.
“I can have someone explain the legal language with me and with my family," said Jacobsen, explaining Hospice's program. "Another thing is that I can appoint somebody [i.e., a family member] if I’m not competent in that situation to make the decision [to stay on life support] for me.”
Though less than one percent of American hospices provide free services, Jacobsen said he feels everyone should receive care, especially during a time of anguish. But despite growing healthcare debates, Jacobsen says the hospice never takes a stance on political topics.
“We don’t endorse any issue, but this whole issue of advanced planning is just really important and it’s designed to really lessen human suffering,” said Jacobsen.
Jacobsen said giving people the “power to decide what they want” when they pass on is in fact an “act of love,” both for the individual and family members who often find themselves stricken in crisis.
“It’s all about love,” said Jacobsen. “For me to do it now and tell my family, and when they have to face it they’ll think, ‘Wow, Dad really thought about us.’”
Jacobsen said he hopes patients can discuss openly with their doctors how they want their final days arranged.
For Jacobsen, helping his community in their time of need is the hospice’s best decision.
“We do the free service because we felt that if we could do that — it’s the right thing to do,” said Jacobsen.
Visit Hospice of Santa Barbara at hospiceofsantabarbara.org.
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Santa Barbara Hospice was invaluable to my father, myself and the rest of my family over the past few years as he slowly died from a terminal illness. They began by coming into my home and seeing him and providing help as his care became more hands on. They ordered medication and supplies and coordinated with his medical insurance so that I didn't even have to think about it. When he had to be fed through a tube in his stomach they taught me how to do it and ordered the food, keeping a steady supply. When the time came where he needed more care than I could provide they gave him a private room at one of their Hospice houses and treated him like one of their family. They had their door open to me and the rest of the family, and to my father's friends, 24/7 and they were kind, gentle and patient with us, and they cared for my father in a loving and gentle manner, treating him with dignity until the night he died. When he passed, they were there for me and one of the nurses even came to his funeral. My father lived at hospice for more than a year and they did not ask us to pay, not even when his insurance ran out just a few months into his stay.
Thank you Hospice!
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santabarbarasand (anonymous profile)
September 3, 2009 at 12:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It is wonderful to read testimonies like the prior posted comment, and I thank the person who posted it for letting others know what hospice services can do. It seems clear from the account that the services described were provided by Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care. VNHC is the other great hospice organization in town, and they are the primary provider of the kind of sensitive, professional end of life medical services that make such a difference for so many, including the residential hospice services they offer at Serenity House. VNHC provides other services, including free seminars on Advanced Care Directives. We are grateful for the work they do and that we both can offer Santa Barbara the highest quality of end of life services. -- Steve Jacobsen, Executive Director, Hospice of Santa Barbara
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sjniche (anonymous profile)
September 4, 2009 at 12:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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