Palliative Care

Palliative care is comfort care.  It is active total care of patients whose disease is no longer responsive to curative treatment. It is about improving quality of life, while neither hastening nor postponing death.

It seeks to lessen physical, mental or spiritual pain and suffering to provide the greatest possible comfort.

The Palliative care team is made up of the patient’s primary care physician, a physician specially trained in palliative medicine, an advanced practice nurse, a social worker, a chaplain and a pharmacist.

Together, they apply scientific principles with compassion, continuity and respect for the autonomy and dignity of individual patients and their families.

Palliative services include individualized assessment and management of pain and other sources of discomfort, emotional and spiritual support for patients and families, crisis response from a member of the care team while in the hospital, assistance with advanced health care planning and decisions, assistance with referral and transition to hospice or other levels of care, patient and caregiver education, and grief counseling and bereavement support.

We make many promises to our patients with serious illnesses.  Our main promise is to provide comfort. We promise to work towards helping patients and their families understand what is likely to happen. We promise to make the patients’ and their families’ concerns a part of the planning and services. We promise to help the patients and their families make the most of everyday.