“Know Your Nonprofits” is a weekly column in the Times-Standard that takes an in-depth look at nonprofit organizations throughout Humboldt County. This week’s featured nonprofit is Hospice of Humboldt. Tia Baratelle, director of development and community relations, answered the following questions.
Briefly describe your organization and its mission: Hospice of Humboldt provides heartfelt end-of-life care and grief support services. Facing the end of life or caring for a loved one with a terminal illness can be stressful and overwhelming. HOH provides compassionate medical care, eases communication and offers support to families. Hospice care includes a team of hospice professionals and volunteers with deeply caring hearts and a listening ear.
Hospice of Humboldt also has the only specialized end-of-life care facility on the North Coast. The Ida Emmerson Hospice House offers the highest level of care in the most peaceful setting possible, with a comfortable home-like environment for family and friends to visit patients 24 hours a day.
When and why was this nonprofit founded?: HOH was started in 1978 by a small group of volunteers, including Dr. Larry Hill, Jay Rezzonico, Dr. Elmer Larsen, Arlene Brazeau, RN, and Margret Soderberg, RN. We saw our first patient in January 1979.
Hospice of Humboldt was founded on the mission to provide heartfelt end-of-life care and bereavement services, envisioning a community in which no one dies alone or afraid and all who grieve are comforted.
Is there anything you wish more people knew about the organization or the issues this nonprofit is trying to solve?: Referrals for service do NOT have to be done by a doctor. Anyone can request a no-cost, no-obligation evaluation or information visit from Hospice of Humboldt, whether the patient resides in a private home or a care facility. Earlier referrals are always our goal. So many people facing a terminal illness often wait until there is a crisis to contact us. Getting hospice involved earlier means that patients and families can benefit from our full scope of hospice services and avoid those crisis situations. It’s important to know that hospice does nothing to hasten a person’s death or artificially prolong their life. Studies have found that hospice patients actually live longer than those not receiving hospice care.
Where does most of the nonprofit’s funding come from?: Hospice of Humboldt is a Medicare certified hospice agency. Most of our funding comes from the Medicare Hospice Benefit. However, the range of care we provide is only made possible through generous community support. Hospice offers many services that go above and beyond what we are reimbursed for through insurance benefits. Community support ensures that our patients and their families without health insurance or financial resources have the personalized medical care and support they need.
How can people get involved with your organization?: There are many ways to become part of our Hospice family! Whether it’s through a donation or leaving a legacy gift by making a provision in your will or estate for Hospice of Humboldt or becoming a Hospice volunteer. Hospice volunteers bring a special kind of caring to patients and their families through a variety of roles: sorting clothes for sale at our Hospice Shop in Arcata, playing chess with a patient or walking a patient’s beloved dog are just a few examples of volunteer activities. Our volunteers tell us that they receive tremendous personal satisfaction from helping others and we couldn’t do our work without them.
Tell me about a few of your organization’s recent accomplishments: This year, we are proud to celebrate the five-year anniversary of opening the Ida Emmerson Hospice House. While under the care of the Hospice House team, the facility allows for the space and time for loved ones to spend precious moments together instead of needing to be 24-hour caregivers.
However, our most recent accomplishment is how our agency dealt with the challenges of COVID-19. During this pandemic, our clinicians have continued to provide heartfelt end-of-life care to our patients in their homes. Whether their home was a skilled nursing facility, residential care facility, the Hospice House or a private residence, we were there to support patients and families 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Even through an unprecedented public health crisis, Hospice of Humboldt remains available when our community needs us the most.
What challenges has the pandemic created for your organization and how has the nonprofit dealt with those challenges?: To keep our staff, patients and community safe, Hospice of Humboldt continues to work diligently to ensure that we follow the most current guidelines and safety precautions. In order to adhere to those guidelines, we were challenged by the shortage and high cost of personal protective equipment for our clinicians, structural upgrades to help keep our administrative staff safe, as well as the unavoidable expense of information technology equipment so we could communicate safely and effectively through remote work.
Despite these challenges, the pandemic gave us opportunities to reevaluate our protocols and processes around things like remote work. We appreciate how our community rallied together to meet our needs and those of other health care agencies with generous donations of hand sanitizer and beautiful handmade face coverings. Working together, there was not any disruption in our services as we remained committed to the health and well-being of our community.
What’s the best way for people to find out more about your nonprofit organization?: Visit our website at www.hospiceofhumboldt.org, give us a call at 707-445-8443 and follow us on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/hospiceofhumboldt.
To participate in the “Know Your Nonprofits” column, contact Heather Shelton at hshelton@times-standard.com.
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