** Mission **
Coastal Hospice promotes dignity and quality of life for patients and families who face life-limiting conditions.
** Vision **
We will provide comfort, security and the celebration of life's joys for all in our community who would benefit from hospice and palliative care.
We will anticipate and meet the growing demand for our service in new settings and challenges in the health care environment.
We will create in our community a thorough understanding and appreciation of the potential of hospice and palliative care to fulfill the life goals of each individual.
We will inspire and empower Coastal Hospice staff to create and implement new ways to enhance each patient's hospice and palliative care experience.
We value the contribution of each staff member and will challenge and encourage personal and professional growth.
** Values **
Affirming Life
Coastal Hospice believes human life has inherent dignity and is worthy of celebration. We hope our patients will live life to its fullest. Coastal Hospice will neither hasten nor unduly postpone death for those who are terminally ill. We will strive to alleviate pain, to provide physical comfort, to encourage emotional and spiritual growth, to foster reconciliation, and to enhance each patient's relationships with others.
* Respect
Coastal Hospice respects the dignity of all who serve and are served by Coastal Hospice. We honor each patient's privacy and right to make decisions concerning treatment. We encourage each colleague's professional development. We will foster a work environment characterized by effective teamwork, clear direction and recognition of individual contributions.
* Compassion
Coastal Hospice will respond promptly with our presence to patients and families needing assistance, guidance and relief from suffering. We encourage caring support, communication, understanding, empathy and listening.
* Trust
Coastal Hospice provides care and nurtures trust through the development of therapeutic relationships and strong teamwork. We will earn and maintain the trust of our patients, teammates and community through open, honest communication and consistent delivery of quality care.
* Resourcefulness
Coastal Hospice accomplishes goals through the collective creativity, knowledge and skills of team members. We are committed to the highest standards of care and continuous quality improvement. To assure future stability and growth (to meet the diverse needs of the community) we are responsible stewards of our resources. We pledge to provide care regardless of our patient's financial circumstances.
History Of Coastal Hospice at the Lake
Twenty six years ago, a visionary group of local citizens achieved their first milestone in establishing Coastal Hospice when it became a non-profit corporation. These first hospice volunteers had traveled a long way from the moment one of them mentioned to another at a 1978 social gathering, "Do you think we could have a hospice here on the Eastern Shore?"
Inspired by the example of hospice pioneer Cicely Saunders, the volunteers organized a grass roots effort. With the help of the Rollie H. White Fund, they traveled to Montreal to study a model palliative care program and see Cicely Saunders herself. They communicated with other newly forming hospice organization across the country. Information was freely shared. At this birth of the local hospice movement, all involved were dedicated to improving the care of those near the end of life's journey.
The movement attracted highly trained physicians, homemakers, nurses, professors, social workers, attorneys, as well as business and religious leaders. Originally called the Coastal Hospice Society, the group's logo was a ship formed by the letters CHS. With it was a quote from G. K. Chesterton "We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty." Coastal Hospice exists today because community loyalty supported it during the past twenty years.
Cicely Saunders once said to a patient, "You matter because you are you." She recognized that each of us is a gift to our community, which hopefully sustains us in our frailest moments, just as it embraces and nurtures us at birth.
