Hospice Can Fit with Latino s End of Life Philosophy
Hospice Can Fit with Latino's End-of-Life Philosophy Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.
• 2014: 41.4 percent
• 2015: 41.9 percent
• 2016: 42.9 percent
• 2017: 42.7 percent Source: About 2 percent of all hospice patients in 2017 were Latino, according to an October 2019 Government Accountability Office report. The overwhelming majority of beneficiaries were non-Hispanic white. Flowers & Gifts 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items See more Flowers & Gifts offers > As more Hispanics experience hospice's holistic approach to care, Radulovic adds, they're more likely to tell friends and family not to be afraid of it, and acceptance will continue to grow. That has been Ana Contreras’ experience. “If we didn't have hospice, I don't know if we could have done all this,” she said just 3 1/2 weeks after her father entered the support program for those who are terminally ill and their families. The was able to communicate directly with Elias Contreras. Without the male certified nurse's aide, Contreras says that bathing her father would have been impossible. The hospice team taught her how to move him to avoid bedsores and to get him safely from bed to wheelchair. In fact, hospice provided the hospital bed, incontinence products, lotions, medications and oxygen tank, she says. Medicare covers everything needed for terminally ill patients as long as it's from a Medicare-approved hospice provider. "You can still take care of your parents but have hospice help you,” Contreras says. “They're not taking anything away from that.”
Latinos Hospice Use Is Growing
Medicare patients usage more than doubles since 2000
Elias Contreras, 103, with his daughter, Ana, (left) and niece, Teresa. Courtesy of Elias Contreras Family Ana Contreras always knew she would be caring for her father, 103 years old and suffering from congestive heart failure. She even wrote a poem about it 15 years earlier: “Now it's our turn …” was its steady refrain. She also knew that she would not allow her dad, Elias Contreras, to suffer and die the way her mother, Susana Contreras, had — in a hospital. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. "I won't allow harsh things, painful things, unnecessary things to be done. Absolutely not,” Ana Contreras says. However, having her father in never was part of the plan. “When I heard the word ‘hospice,’ it was like hearing the word ‘cancer,’ “ says Contreras, 56, who lives in the Phoenix area. She had bristled at the doctor's suggestion that her dad be put in hospice. “To me, hospice meant sending your parents someplace where they were supposed to be taken care of, but sometimes they weren't."An expanding awareness
Such misconceptions or even a lack of awareness about hospice is common in the Hispanic community. The concept of hospice is unfamiliar in Latin America, where traditionally most families . In-home support from doctors, nurses, nurse's aides or social workers is rarely, if ever, available. But in the United States, hospice provides those services. "Latinos often think they're giving up on their [loved one's] medical care, and that's not the case,” says Jon Radulovic, vice president of communications at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in Alexandria, Virginia. “You're not abandoning your loved one. "It's not giving up,” he says. “It's bringing a holistic, compassionate form of health care focused on dignity and the patient's wishes.”A look at the numbers
A little more than half of all Medicare beneficiaries who died in 2017 used hospice services, up from almost 23 percent in 2000. The rate among Hispanic Medicare patients who died: • 2000: 21.1 percent• 2014: 41.4 percent
• 2015: 41.9 percent
• 2016: 42.9 percent
• 2017: 42.7 percent Source: About 2 percent of all hospice patients in 2017 were Latino, according to an October 2019 Government Accountability Office report. The overwhelming majority of beneficiaries were non-Hispanic white. Flowers & Gifts 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items See more Flowers & Gifts offers > As more Hispanics experience hospice's holistic approach to care, Radulovic adds, they're more likely to tell friends and family not to be afraid of it, and acceptance will continue to grow. That has been Ana Contreras’ experience. “If we didn't have hospice, I don't know if we could have done all this,” she said just 3 1/2 weeks after her father entered the support program for those who are terminally ill and their families. The was able to communicate directly with Elias Contreras. Without the male certified nurse's aide, Contreras says that bathing her father would have been impossible. The hospice team taught her how to move him to avoid bedsores and to get him safely from bed to wheelchair. In fact, hospice provided the hospital bed, incontinence products, lotions, medications and oxygen tank, she says. Medicare covers everything needed for terminally ill patients as long as it's from a Medicare-approved hospice provider. "You can still take care of your parents but have hospice help you,” Contreras says. “They're not taking anything away from that.”