Spotlight
John R. Williamson Hospice House celebrates 10th anniversary
Life Touch’s John R. Williamson Hospice House has been caring for patients and giving them and their families the highest measure of care and respect for 10 years this month. “I believe we accepted our first patient on March 31, 2007,” said Macy Braswell, executive director of Life Touch Hospice.
The John R.
Williamson Hospice House (JRWHH) is a 16-bed facility that serves as a place of total care with a home-like setting. They accommodate all of the physical, spiritual and emotional patient needs with help from interdisciplinary teams, chaplains, social workers and volunteers.
The number one focus for the nurses and staff at the hospice house is the patients, but they are also there for the family. “I think that’s something that can get lost in just the general medical care of a hospital or other types of facilities,” said Tyler Turner, outreach coordinator for the hospice house. “The family is so often focused on the patient, that they don’t take care of themselves. Being able to surround that family in a time when they’re so focused on the patient is a really cool thing that we do.”
The hospice house welcomes patients from all over the United States. “In our in-patient facility, a person can live in Farmerville, Louisiana and come to us, but we cannot go to Louisiana to serve them,” said Luther Allgood, hospice house coordinator.
Medicare allows JRWHH to offer a resident’s care so that the staff can assist not only the patients, but their families as well – "whether it be to allow them some rest time at home or just step out of the shoes of the caregivers role,” Braswell said.
Some achievements the hospice has made in the last 10 years are getting the word out for families, and educating the community about hospice care.
The hospice rooms are set up so that families can stay with them. There is a connecting room with a chair, television and a couch that pulls out into a bed. Each room comes with a private outdoor patio area that can be accessed from inside the room.
When the hospice was being built, Linda Swart, previous executive director of Life Touch Hospice who has since passed away, developed a vision in her mind of the perfect hospice facility. There was a lot of intention when they built the house and Swart toured the country with others to see the best and worst that hospice care has to offer. They took the best ideas that they found and used what she felt would make El Dorado’s in-patient hospice facility first class.
“They were very intentional about meeting the needs for the patients and the family members,” Braswell said. “It needs to be different than hospital level care.”
There is a sitting room in the house in memory of Swart.
One of the unique features the patients' rooms have is the connecting family room door is made out of glass. This way the families can close their door, but can still keep an eye on their loved one at all times.
Volunteers are a big part for
the hospice’s success. There is a volunteer training program that everyone goes through to prepare them and provide education, allowing anyone to be able to volunteer.
The volunteers help with various programs that the hospice arranges, including the support they provide for veterans. They have a program in place for veterans called Operation Appreciation, which includes a ceremony where the veterans receive honorary pins and certificates. “We have a special group of veteran volunteers that help us,” Braswell said. “It’s a veteran to veteran volunteer program. They just want to be able to show appreciation to other veterans.”
The veterans also receive a quilt square on their room door to show appreciation. Another set of quilting volunteers makes these quilt squares.
“We do that at all services, here in the hospice house, nursing homes, in-home, anywhere a veteran is that is in our care, we go to and present,” Turner said.
The hospice house also raises flags on Memorial Day and keep them up through June.
They also have a volunteer group that does all of the Christmas decorations throughout the facility. “There are people who spend their holidays here, so we want to keep it as inviting as possible,” Braswell said.
The house also has a kitchen designated just for families. The kitchen has two of everything, including refrigerators, ovens and microwaves. “If there were two families that wanted to come in here at the same time, they could both be preparing a meal,” Braswell said. “We love it when families use the kitchen because that’s what it is intended for.”
With community support, the hospice has been able to go the extra mile for their patients. “We’ve had two car donations in the last six months,” Braswell said. “And because of that generosity, we can do things that are outside of the typical hospice medical care realm.”
Some other features that the hospice contains are a chapel, laundry room and a spa room for the patients who want their hair done or a spa bath.
Pets are also allowed in the facility.
It took a while to get the hospice going when they first opened, including having trouble in regard to the number of people they could take care of. “We’ve overcome a lot of that in the last couple of years,” Braswell said. “We’ve taken care of more people in the last year or two than we have ever before. Our numbers continue to grow, so I do believe that God is blessing us.”
“There are still some misconceptions we’d like to clear up, like that patients don’t just come here to die,” said Sharon Story, RN, CHPN (certified hospice and palliative nurse). “Some of our patients actually have a better quality and can extend their (life) time.”
A lot of the times the patients are released to go back home. “They go home until actual endof-life care begins and they need more help,” Allgood said. “Instead of going to the hospital, they can come back here.”
“They come to this building for the first time and I think they anticipate something scary and when they walk through the door, it’s calm, warm and inviting,” Story said.
“Not only is it just an amazing place and an amazing service, but these people are people that most of society probably doesn’t think about, unfortunately,” Turner said. “That’s what we want to change.”
The facility has no set visiting hours and children of all ages are welcomed and invited to enjoy the play/television room.
Specially trained medial staff provide care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They have certified hospice and palliative care nurses, hospice physician and emotional, spiritual and grief counselors.
For more information or to schedule an on-site tour, call 1-866-378-0388 or visit their website at www. lifetouchhospice. org.