Benefit to Help Ill Children
By Jeffrey Sheban, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
Feb. 25–Nationwide Children’s Hospital is taking hospicelike care to dozens of children who might live for years with chronic illnesses.
The hospital, which recently added palliative care to its hospice program, will be able to help three times as many children this year with end-of-life services.
Dr. Michael H. Joseph, a pain specialist from California, was hired in November to create the effort at Children’s and integrate it with the hospice services.
A fundraiser to benefit hospice and palliative care will take place at 6:30 tonight in Spagio, where 13 chefs from throughout the country will create dishes in the dining area of the Grandview Heights restaurant. Kitchen tours will be included.
Hospice and palliative care are similar: Each offers pain relief, grief counseling and other medical and social services to help patients and families face imminent death.
Hospice care is provided primarily in the home by nurses and social workers in the final stage of an illness, after medical treatment has stopped. Most insurance policies don’t cover it, Joseph said.
Palliative care is for anyone with a chronic or terminal illness.
Because most such patients remain hospitalized for medical treatment, more palliative services are covered by insurance.
Twelve children were admitted last year to the Children’s hospice program; 19 used the services in 2006.
The goal is to give palliative care to as many as 40 children this year, in addition to the hospice caseload, said hospice patient-care coordinator Jennifer Wilson Harding, a registered nurse.
“Some of the chronic diseases afflicting children have a one- to 10-year life cycle,” she said. “So, with palliative care, maybe they’ll live until there’s a cure.”
Akron Children’s Hospital became the first in Ohio — six years ago — to offer pediatric palliative care, said Dr. Sarah Friebert, director of the Haslinger care center there.
“By focusing only on cures, we miss opportunities to treat the tremendous suffering that many of these kids deal with,” Friebert said.
Last year, said Sheila Eastep of Circleville, the hospice team at Nationwide Children’s kept her family together through the death of her 15-year-old daughter, Brittany, of a rare bone cancer.
“We could have never ended this alone,” she said. “They helped us emotionally and physically.”
Eastep is glad that more families will have access to some elements of hospice through the palliative-care program.
“The impact will be unbelievable,” she said.
Hospice and palliative care don’t make money for hospitals.
Children’s loses about $225,000 on such services each year, spokeswoman Mary Ellen Fiorino said.
That’s why fundraisers are needed.
Pleasure Guild, a volunteer auxiliary, last year raised $253,000 for hospice through the Spagio event and a family musical.
The latest production, Annie, will run March 7-9 in the Palace Theatre.
The goal tonight, volunteer Hope Harrison said, is to raise $100,000 from the dinner and wine tasting.
jsheban@dispatch.com
–”A Celebration of Wine, Food and Dining With the Stars,” a fundraiser for hospice and palliative care at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, will begin at 6:30 tonight in Spagio, 1295 Grandview Ave. Tickets cost $225. Call 614-486-1114.Theme of the day Each Monday, Life & Arts showcases material related to health and fitness. INSIDE –A profile of a trainer D3 –Product Watch, Nutrition IQ D3
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