How Your Support Helps
Ka Hua o Ke Kākoʻo ʻAna Mai
Since 1983, Kauaʻi Hospice has been providing expert end-of-life care to patients and families in need on our Kauaʻi island community. Today, Kauaʻi Hospice remains the island’s only not-for-profit, community-based provider of hospice care. The vision and mission remain the cornerstone of our work and organizational soul: help each person in the community find quality of life.
Today, we care for patients living with any life-limiting illness, including heart disease, cancer, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), AIDS, liver disease, emphysema and Alzheimer’s dementia. No matter how sick or how old (or young), from newborns to centenarians, we’re ready to help.
Kauaʻi Hospice does not turn away anyone medically eligible for our services because they cannot afford their care. Kauaʻi Hospice doors and services are open to all who qualify as “hospice-eligible,” which means he/she has been given a prognosis of six months or less due to life-limiting illness, regardless of ability to pay.
In addition to patient costs, your contribution helps Kauaʻi Hospice provide other essential services to patients, families and our island ʻohana including bereavement and grief support, respite care, community education and training, counseling, and recruitment/training of volunteers – allowing Kauaʻi Hospice to continue its traditions of excellence and service to children, adults and their families.
Hospice: A Dramatically Growing Need
The need for hospice care will continue to expand due to an aging population, the increasing concern about end-of-life care, rising health care costs and cuts to state and federal funding streams. Both medical professionals and the general public are choosing hospice care over other forms of health care delivery because of its holistic, patient-family and in-home-centered philosophy.
At the same time, however, many patients and families who might benefit from Kauaʻi Hospice’s programs do not know about the Medicare Hospice benefit or that they are eligible for hospice or palliative care. We are deeply grateful to our community of supporters for your help in reaching out to those in need and allowing us to care for them when they do come our way.
While we are very frugal in our purchases and faithfully good stewards of all income and contributions, we are still finding that direct patient care expenses account for a large portion of our overall expenses. Every year costs for these items increase while insurance reimbursements remain unchanged. In addition, our patient count has grown and brought an increase in the number of uninsured patients receiving our care.
Your generous support is needed now more than ever so that our doors can remain open to all who need us.