Saint John of God Community Services and Archbishop Damiano School have formally named Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice as the not-for-profit organization’s preferred provider of palliative and hospice care for its medically frail students and clients with special needs.
Samaritan’s preferred provider status formalizes a collaborative pilot program with Archbishop Damiano School at Saint John of God Community Services that began in 2012. Samaritan has provided staff training and worked with the school’s staff to consult with students and their families. The goal has been to introduce the concept of palliative care to each family at admission, and routinely add palliative medicine to the multi-disciplinary care team rather than wait until a health crisis develops.
According to the Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care (www.ippcweb.org), strides have been made nationally to improve end-of-life care among adults, but there is still much work to do to improve comfort care on behalf of children and their families.
Brother Thomas Osorio, OH, Saint John of God Community Services’ interim executive director, believes this also applies to adults with developmental disabilities and their families.
Brother Tom hopes this collaboration will serve as a model for other organizations serving people with developmental disabilities.
“The heart of our mission is to care for those in need while preserving their dignity and ensuring a quality of life,” he said. “Our collaboration with Samaritan Healthcare and Hospice allows us to do just that. Saint John of God Community Services is founded on the principle of hospitality, which enhances Samaritan’s values. One of our greatest desires is to come to a place where talking about palliative and end-of-life care is no longer an extraordinary conversation.”
Dr. Stephen Goldfine, Samaritan’s chief medical officer, welcomes this ongoing opportunity for earlier conversations with families, faculty, and therapists. “When a child lives with a serious chronic condition, the life of his/her family changes forever. Caring parents need reliable information — and someone who will take the time to explain it. They want support through difficult decision-making. Children and teens need expert relief from the pain and symptoms that can accompany their conditions or the treatments aimed at curing them. Palliative medicine can help. By relieving pain and managing symptoms before a child needs hospice care, we are opening new opportunities of communication with families,” he explains.
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