HOSPICE
NETTAH NDUNGU
Texas Tech University Health Science Center School of Nursing

Hospice Hospice is a comprehensive, medically directed, team oriented program of care that emphasizes pain control and symptom management rather than curative treatment. It directs acceptance of death as a natural part of life and addresses the psychological and spiritual needs of the patient and family. This paper will outline the history of hospice, the effect it has on healthcare today, why it is important to nursing, how nursing is impacted by the availability of hospice services, and finally, what nursing has done to affect change related to hospice.
History of Hospice Hospice was first applied to specialized care for dying patients by Dr. Dame Cicely Saunders, who started working with the terminally ill in 1948 (NHCPO, 2015). Dr. Saunders later created the first modern hospice – St. Christopher’s Hospice in a residential suburb in London. Her approach was later introduced to healthcare professionals and chaplains in the U.S in 1963 during a lecture at Yale University. In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross contributed to the idea of hospice centered care in her book: On Death and Dying which highlighted the five stages of dying and a plea for home care as opposed to treatment in an institutional setting. In 1978, the United States’ Department of Health, Education and Welfare Task Force acknowledged the hospice concept as a means of providing more humane care for America’s terminally ill, while asking for federal support and reducing cost. By 1993 hospice became a nationally guaranteed benefit under President Clinton’s healthcare reform proposal and it is now an accepted part of the healthcare continuum of services.
Hospice has faced resistance springing from various factors, including professional or cultural taboos against open communication about death among physicians