Does Hospice Care Mean Giving Up? What Is Hospice Home Care?

Kathleen Johnson, BSN, RN, ADS, talks about her personal experience of her mother and father on Hospice. Both had great experiences and both were very different.

Francis: It's one question that comes up a lot is “Does hospice just mean giving up?” How would you respond to families when asked “Am I ready? Is this okay?”

Kathleen: So how I would respond would be based on my own personal experience. Hospice is really about quality of life. For us my mother came on to Hospice in the very last weeks of her life, we didn't get the full benefit of Hospice. I didn't understand what Hospice was, I wasn't in hospice back then. You know, I want to just draw a distinction because I had two different experiences—one with my mother and one with my father. My father was declining, we all felt it so we explored hospice earlier and I'm so grateful that we did.

Francis: How early did you explore?

Kathleen: So, he was alive on hospice for almost five months, but I'm so grateful that I had someone to call in the middle of the night when he fell, or I had someone to call when it wasn't quite right. It's that lifeline, because I didn’t know the process, I wasn’t a nurse yet. So, the team was critical to me being able to honor my father's wishes and support him through that journey.