Hospice House Discussed In Highlands

SEBRING - Highlands County may soon have a hospice house for people with advanced illnesses.

Good Shepherd Hospice held a meeting Thursday night in Sebring, discussing plans to possibly open a home hospice facility.

"We wanted to see what kind of interest (a house) would draw from the community," said Karen Frashier, director of marketing and communications with Good Shepherd Hospice.

Home hospices offer day-to-day care services for patients with terminal illnesses who don't want to receive treatment in a hospital and cannot care for themselves at home. More often than not, they are the last residence occupied by a person before death.

The hospice houses offer a home-like settings, with kitchen and dining areas, on-site laundry facilities, libraries, quiet rooms and play areas for child visitors, with the same care of a hospital.

Inside the home there are nurses, physicians, counselors and trained volunteers.

Plans for the estimated $6 million, 12-bedroom hospice house in Highlands County are in the early stages, but currently representatives with Good Shepherd are saying that they would like to find between six to eight acres of land to build the house on.

"We would like to build on land where it's off of a main road," said Frashier. "It would be important for people to have easy access to (the hospice)."

According to Good Shepherd, they support more than 900 Highlands and Hardee County families in their houses in Florida per year. Currently, the nearest hospice house is in Auburndale.

Kathy Fernandez, the president and CEO of Good Shepherd, was in attendance for Thursday's meeting and said that a typical house usually employees between 35 and 40 workers.

"We think a hospice home would be important for the residents (of Highlands County)," said Fernandez, who lobbied attendees to write letters to Good Shepherd that they can use for a state application process before they can get the ok to build the facility. "Highlands County is a growing community, with a senior population that is 4 percent above the national average."

Fernandez said that Good Shepherd is planning to file a letter of intent with the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration in April telling them that they want to build the hospice house, and a complete application seeking certification from the agency in June.

Fernandez said that Good Shepherd would like to begin building the hospice house later this fall, and would like it to have construction completed within a year.

Fernandez said that most house services are covered by Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance plans.

Good Shepherd hospice houses offer services to patients regardless of their ability to pay, offering $1.8 million in charity care in 2006, according to Fernandez.

Thursday's meeting was held at Dr. Vinod Thakkar's home. For information on Good Shepherd Hospice Houses, you can visit the Web site http://www.goodshepherdhospice.org or call 1-800-544-3280.