FORT SMITH — When visitors get off the elevator on the fifth floor of St. Edward Mercy Medical Center, they immediately see a tree with dozens of brass leaves, most of them 25 years old, acknowledging donors who established Mercy Hospice in 1983.
On June 23, those roots grew a little deeper as the hospital opened a 12-bed unit for terminally ill patients requiring inpatient care.
Dr. Joseph Chan, medical director of Mercy Hospice and Palliative Care, said that the opening of the new unit was the “start of more dreams to come.”
Jerry Stevenson, CEO of St. Edward Mercy Health System, said a decision to build an inpatient hospice unit was made to allow people to stay close to home as they receive care in their final days.
“Our actions should reflect the heritage on which Mercy was built,” he said.
Before cutting the ribbon to open the new unit, Fort Smith Mayor Ray Baker scattered rose petals and St. Boniface Church pastor Father Jon McDougal blessed the facility.
The 12 rooms have comfortable recliners for visiting family members and are paired into adjoining room units so that, if space is available, family can sleep next door to the patient. The rooms, decorated in soft colors with large windows facing park-like grounds, are designed to be homey.
All of the services available through St. Edward’s established outpatient hospice program — medical, spiritual and psychosocial service — will be available in the inpatient hospice.
Hospice patients suffer from a variety of illnesses, including cancer, HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease. To be admitted, patients must choose palliative care instead of aggressive medical treatment and have, in their doctor’s opinion, a terminal or life-threatening illness.
While patients are still at home, hospice staff is on-call for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some of the services that hospice patients receive include physical, occupational, speech and nutrition therapy and medical and pain management. Mercy Hospice cares for the whole family by providing support groups while patients are alive and bereavement groups after they have died. The hospice holds bi-annual memorial services for their patients who have passed away. The service they provide for more than 160 patients each year will become more comprehensive with an inpatient unit to care for them during the most critical stages of their illness.
Trained volunteers supplement the efforts of Mercy staff to provide comfort to the patients. Many, such as retired Sister Dolorita Thompson, OSB, who volunteers 800 hours a year with the hospice, have nursing backgrounds themselves.
Curtisstine Forte, a nurse at McAuley Convent whose grandmother was a Mercy Hospice patient, said that her initial misgivings about her grandmother’s choice of hospice were alleviated when she got to see the program in action.
“If there is an easier, more dignified way to transition from this life to the next, we should be open to it.”
