Susan Wagoner
Members of the healthcare community met at El Humilde in Pryor Wednesday for a luncheon sponsored by Good Shepherd Hospice out of Grove. Begg’s Pharmacy bought lunch for all in attendance.
Guest speaker and Social Worker Darwin King, spoke about the hospice industry and in particular, what Good Shepherd Hospice provides their patients.
“Our job is connecting people to what they need,” King said. “We do as much or as little as our patients want.”
The criteria to be a hospice patient seems simple, their clients have a terminal illness. Something King defined as “not just cancer, but anything that cannot be treated anymore.”
The bigger picture, however, includes friends and family members who hold that loved one near and dear.
“It can be tough,” King said. “We can’t make their loved ones well, but we can make their last days comfortable. We tell the family what is going to happen, what they’re going to see.”
In most cases, the terminal patient has a better grasp of their destiny and is at peace with what lies ahead, King said, something that family members have a harder time dealing with.
That’s where the care after the care comes in. Good Shepherd Hospice also provides grief care to the survivors at no cost to the families.
“We use a booklet series by Doug Manning,” King said. “Grief comes in stages. There are four booklets. We send one out every three months for the first year,”
The books are “Discovering Permission to Grieve,” “Discovering Significance,” “Dis-
covering Understanding” and “Discovering Comfort.”
Books are available for grieving families even if their loved one was not a patient of their hospice program.
In a video excerpt of Doug Manning’s Grief Series, which was shown at the luncheon, Manning says that understanding is key to the healing process.
“The opposite of understanding isn’t misunderstanding, it’s trivialize,” Manning said, adding that when people pass on canned advice such as “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” it is of little help to those who experience such hurt and aloneness. Trivializing pain is not healing.
Organizations who attended the luncheon include Healthcare Innovations, Good Shepherd Hospice, Angel’s Care Home Health, Department of Human Services, and Cherokee Nation.
