Kristallnacht

November 9 is Kristallnacht, the unfortunate anniversary of the anti-Jewish violence that took place Germany on November 9 and 10, 1938.  I had the honor of spending the day with MJHS in New York City. We visited the Museum of Jewish Heritage and discussed the future of hospice and palliative care. I capped the day by meeting with an MJHS Interdisciplinary Team.

 

While certainly an emotional day, I ride the rails back home feeling good about the state of our field. Good trauma-informed care comes from a place of person-centeredness and understanding. We have so much trauma to care for these days—as we always have—but what gives me great hope is what we have learned as a community about how to deliver interdisciplinary, person-centered care. 

What I saw in the Interdisciplinary Committee room was a rare (for health care) display of real coordinated care, shared among different disciplines, with the patient and loved ones in the middle. This should be the rule, not the exception in health care.

I had never reflected upon—until today—the fact that both of holocaust-survivor grandparents died under hospice care. My grandfather was reserved, wounded on the inside but never sharing.  He died of Alzheimer’s disease.  My grandmother was outgoing, and demanded to visit Auschwitz (which she survived) before she died of cancer. She made it. Both my grandparents experienced incredible trauma, but came out of it in very different ways.  It was not until they were cared for by the hospice interdisciplinary team that anybody really bothered to tend to the full range of needs they each had after living a full life.

So, here’s to hospice. I wish we were not needed, that there was no death or struggle in life. But so long as there is, I could not think of a better system to care for our struggling brothers and sisters. 

Edo

Edo Banach, JD
President and CEO
NHPCO