Laura Christie, a drive specialty representative with St. Luke Home Health and Hospice Care, spoke to members of the Columbia Rotary Club recently regarding efforts to improve and increase opportunities for area organizations and individual citizens to assist hospice patients through direct donation drives.
St. Luke, within its 13-county service area, currently provides hospice care to 74 patients at its three hospice locations that include Hattiesburg, Monticello and McComb, in addition to housing nine men at a veterans' facility in Monticello. Affiliated with Southwest Medical Center, St. Luke also retains three chaplains on staff for hospice care patients.
Monetary contributions are certainly welcome, useful and appreciated, since they can be centrally collected and facilitated properly through numerous area agencies. However, there are also other extremely valuable ways for groups and individuals to show their support and compassion to hospice patients, including donating their time, energy and directly providing certain items that many people may often take for granted.
Although a portion of an individual's governmental healthcare support funding, such as Medicare and Medicaid, is designated to cover the expense of certain personal care and hygiene products, these funds are not always enough for every patient for an entire month.
The extra cost to purchase more for the remainder of the month can create too much of a burden on a family that simply cannot afford it. Therefore, supplemental assistance is often needed to help hospice patients in need of such items as disposable cleansing wipes and bed pads, adult diapers, socks, gloves, blankets, etc.
Christie said while the governmental support is definitely helpful, it's very limited, and it usually results in a lot of patients running out of their bare necessities before the end of the month. The package donation drives, she said, are very important because they help fill in the gaps when and where they're needed to prevent disadvantaged patients from simply doing without.
She said there's usually also a consistent need for everyday consumable products like non-perishable food items and canned goods, as well as used medical equipment such as walkers, beds, wheelchairs, toilet chairs, appliances, furniture, portable air conditioners, etc. Sometimes what the patients need is not even a tangible item but rather just someone to visit or simply sit and talk for a little while.
"Medical, mental and spiritual preparation is critical for hospice patients, and just having company or sharing time together can make all the difference to them," Christie said. "Although a common misperception in this industry (hospice care) is that patients are in their 80s or 90s, that's not always the case as patients' ages can range much younger. It's not uncommon to encounter some incredibly sad environments, including situations of patient abandonment, and it's really heartbreaking."
Like many other businesses and industries, Covid created some major obstacles for hospice care, as well as healthcare in general, due to the obvious virus transmission fears, masking, distancing restrictions, etc.
Now, more than a year since the pandemic began, Christie said much of the general public interactions are starting to return to normal but the field of healthcare continues to require significant precautionary measures.
In addition to individual donations and coordinated package drives, Christie said other hospice assistance efforts include teaming up with participating businesses, such as Walmart, that generously donates $100 worth of products per month. She said they're also in the process of restarting the Meals-On-Wheels program in Marion County.
Donated items can be dropped off at any of St. Luke's six area locations:
113 Hwy 98, Ste. C, Columbia
6598 Hwy 98, Hattiesburg
210 State St., McComb
710 Brookway Blvd., Brookhaven
1167 E. Broad St., Monticello
183 E. Blalock Cir., #A, Liberty
For more information, contact volunteer coordinators Laura Christie at (601) 674-0202 or Sherry Stubbs at (601) 441-6123.
