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Reprinted with permission, Courtesy, Ocean County Observer.
TOMS RIVER, New Jersey, March 15, 2007 – One of the hardest times a family can experience is when a loved one is dying.
At Community Medical Center's Van Dyke Hospice and Palliative Care Center, staff members try to make a patient's last days a little easier, while helping families deal with the loss.
The new 10-bed unit, which will mark a year of service in July, has cared for almost 400 patients, young and old, since its opening.
What makes the center different, says Debora Jack, director of inpatient care, is an atmosphere that offers comfort and brings families together.
Each of the 10 private rooms are furnished to look like a home rather than a hospital, she said. Medical instruments are close at hand but discreetly tucked away, and visible are comfy quilts, bedside lamps and CD players emitting soft melodies.
"We use music to comfort," Jack said. "It seems to bring generations together."
Also available to families are cots for relatives who want to sleep by a patient's bedside, a meditation room for quiet reflection, and a family room with a television and a large table, where families can gather to share a meal, Jack said.
The purpose of the unit as an acute care facility is to relieve the pain of patients with aggressive symptoms near the end of their lives.
"We deal with any terminal diagnosis," Jack said. "There is a misconception that (hospice) is only for cancer patients."
But, she said, the also unit cares for individuals in the last stages of cardiac ailments, Alzheimer's and other diseases.
Half of patients are older than 60 years old; half are younger.
"We care for the whole life span," she said, "from birth to the very elderly."
Another thing that makes the unit special, she said, is a caring nursing staff who has chosen to work in the field of hospice care.
"We have a tremendously dedicated staff," she said. "They are very compassionate and truly want to provide hospice care."
But, Jack said, it is not an easy job.
"It can be hard for the staff because it's a heavy day of nursing," she said. "They get through it by rereading the cards and letters we have received."
The letters, from families and friends of patients who have spent time in the unit, are collected in a memory box.
"The staff finds relief in the thank yous," she said.
More facilities like the Van Dyke unit, the first inpatient hospice unit in the region, are needed, according to Jack. Within four hours of its opening last year, the center had admitted as many patients.
"I think the importance of a hospice unit rounds out the care residents of Ocean County need," she said, adding that the unit often has a waiting list for the 10 beds.
The most important thing that a patient needs, she reinforced, is comfort.
"Sometimes (patients) have ice cream for breakfast," she said. "They can do that here. What we do is celebrate life by helping families understand the end of life."
The Van Dyke Hospice and Palliative Care Center is an affiliate of the St. Barnabas Health Care System. For more information, call (732) 818-6800 or e-mail dschaedel@sbhcs.com.
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Hospice director Debora Jack, left, and nurse Maria A. Morris.
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A meditation room at Van Dyke Hospice and Palliative Care Center in Toms River.
TOM SPADER PHOTOS |
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