This story is sorta sad, but I had to post it. This place is the first stand alone Hospice home in the state, and if you read it through, funding is being cut. Anyone else dealing with that at their Hospice? You can help support Joliet hospice :: Herald News :: Local News

Joliet Area Community Hospice provides a special kind of care for dying people. Most people do not want to die alone in sterile, impersonal surroundings, hooked up by tubes to machines and cut off from family, friends and everything that is familiar.

Hospice treats the physical needs of patients, as well as the person's emotional and spiritual needs. The hospice staff assists the dying person to live the last weeks and months of life as fully and comfortably as possible, with dignity, at home or in a home-like setting.

Bereavement services are offered to help survivors cope with the loss of their loved one.

Since 1982, hospice has provided services to 15,000 people, with and average daily census of 165 patients and more than 1,200 families using bereavement services.

Sadly, not only adults, but children, are sometimes stricken with life-threatening illness. Hospice offers pediatric hospice care to children who are not expected to reach adulthood. Hospice helps the child's family to provide the best possible care for the child in his or her home.

Judy Militello, director of business development at hospice agrees strongly with the goals of hospice. A nurse, she finds great fulfillment being a member of the hospice team.

"When you're a medical professional, people believe that you automatically know how to handle the death of a loved one," she said. "I had a loved one in hospice years ago, and I found out that I needed the love and support. When you have a loved one in hospice, you see firsthand the good hospice does."

Though care through hospice is covered by Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance, economic difficulties have led to reductions in funding.

"The state of Illinois currently owes JACH over $750,000 for services already provided," Militello said. "Medicare has reduced reimbursement by $1.13 per patient per day."

In a July 8 letter to the editor, hospice CEO Rick Kasper, noted:

"End-of-life care for hospice patients is being severely put in jeopardy! Hospice patients and their families are threatened in Illinois by a 50 percent reduction to hospice care in the healthcare and family services budget."