What Is Hospice?

Hospice is a concept of health care that provides for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of patients with a life-limiting illness. A basic principle of the hospice philosophy is concern for the needs and feelings of the patient’s entire family.

The goal of hospice is not to cure illness or hasten death, but to ease a patient’s passage from life. Hospice helps patients and their families to decide the course of their health care with assistance from their doctors and hospice professionals.

Hospice care is designed to alleviate pain and control the symptoms of disease with skill and compassion. Patients who are not expected to recover from their illness are appropriate for hospice care, which is available to patients with any life-threatening illness, not just cancer. It is our belief that people do not need hospice to die, but rather to complete their lives.