CARY -- When Kathleen Townsend helped found Hospice of Wake County more than 30 years ago, she had to welcome families into her own North Raleigh living room to tell them about a new way to deal with death.
Today, Townsend, 71, the organization's original director, will be around for another milestone -- the opening of the nonprofit's new $14.5 million headquarters and inpatient center. With a sweeping modern design and multiple features to make patients and families feel more at home, the center is the first standalone, inpatient hospice facility in Wake County.
Instead of a fearful fight for life, the hospice approach offers comfort and care to terminally ill patients in their final months or days.
"It's a wonderful approach to helping people as they transition out of life," Townsend said. "They can be surrounded by knowledgeable, caring people who all have the same philosophy, quality of life and comfort."
In the 1970s, Townsend, a registered nurse, drew inspiration from a speech in Chapel Hill by the English hospice pioneer Cicely Saunders, then became part of a small group dedicated to establishing a program in Wake County. At that time, Townsend often worked with terminal patients at Rex Healthcare who were under the care of oncologist Dr. Billy Dunlap, another founder of Hospice of Wake County.
"It was very frustrating not to have a medical support system for them to go home to," Townsend said. "We wanted to encourage the quality of life for the time they had left."
Starting small in 1979, only a few years after the first U.S. hospice opened in Connecticut, Hospice of Wake County has grown to work with more than 1,800 families annually. The 200 staff members are outnumbered by more than 400 volunteers, including some who keep vigil for people with no one else to attend their deaths.
"The unit of care is the person and family," said Gina Murray, clinical manager for the inpatient center, which is named for Dunlap. "As a nurse, I can get the patient comfortable, but it's different getting the family comfortable."
In a way, close to home
Rooms in the center measure more than 300square feet and have double doors opening to an outside courtyard.
Inside are concealed medical devices and small handmade quilts, different for each room. Each room contains a couch-futon that opens into a full-size bed for family members. They can use kitchen and laundry facilities on site.
"People want to be at home," said Cooper Linton, a Hospice vice president. "But when home ceases to be an option, they can come here."
Nationally, a turning point for hospices came in 1982, when Medicare started reimbursing those who provide care. In the years since, for-profit hospice operations have grown nearly to equal the nonprofits that originated the field, said Jon Radulovic, a spokesman for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, a trade group in Alexandria, Va.
Caring is their policy
Health care reform in the works in Congress could result in lower payments for some hospice care, but the details remain in flux, Radulovic said. Linton said Hospice of Wake County supplements Medicare payments with significant fundraising, including more than $1 million annually for indigent care, and doesn't have major concerns about the legislation yet.
"There are always going to be changes in public policy," he said. "Hospice was founded before there was any reimbursement."
