First in-patient hospice to open in county

EVERETT — Snohomish County’s first in-patient hospice service is scheduled to open early next year at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, fulfilling a more than decade-long goal to provide specialized end-of-life care.

The $5.3 million in-patient hospice service could open as early as January. It will be able to serve up to 16 patients, said Peg Rutchik, Providence’s vice president of hospice services. Two rooms can be converted to serve children. The unit will be housed at the hospital’s Colby Campus.

It’s the first in-patient hospice unit to be opened by Providence Health &Services, which operates hospitals and medical clinics in Alaska, California, Oregon Montana and Washington. “I think this is a great thing to have happen for the people in Snohomish County and has the potential to impact all of Providence wherever we have hospice programs,” she said.

The new unit will have a staff of about 20 people, some of whom will work only at the unit and some, such as social workers and chaplains, who also will work with patients in the hospital, Rutchik said.

An in-patient unit is needed because sometimes hospice patients have symptoms that can’t be managed at home and need the help of skilled hospice caregivers, she said. This could be for conditions such as a patient whose pain is increasingly significantly and needs more aggressive treatment or if a patient is experiencing seizures. Patients generally stay in the unit three to five days.

There are six in-patient hospice programs in Washington.

The in-patient service is the newest addition to a hospice program that began in 1978 in Snohomish County, championed by Sister Georgette Bayless. Providence Hospice &Homecare of Snohomish County provides services to patients in their homes, as well as bereavement services and respite care, serving 1,942 adults and 34 children last year.

Bayless said the local hospice service began informally. An area doctor asked her to go to the home of a woman who was dying from cancer and lived about 35 miles from Everett. When Bayless asked the woman what she wanted, the patient said she simply wanted to die at home.

“I felt in my heart this is it,” Bayless said of the mission of a hospice program. “We just started on a shoestring.”

The idea for an in-patient hospice center was first suggested by Bayless in 2003, during a celebration of the hospice organization’s 25th anniversary. “My favorite recollection of Sister Georgette is wearing a hard hat and challenging people to get working” on the project, said Dr. Art Gerdes, a radiation oncologist who served as one of the local hospice program’s founding members.

In 2009, the hospice program was on the verge of buying a 2-acre site in south Everett where an in-patient hospice center would be built. But those plans were dashed by the recession. Nevertheless, Bayless and other supporters never gave up. “We had the vision,” Bayless aid. “We didn’t let it go.”

The opening of Providence’s $460 million medical tower in 2011 freed up space on its Colby Campus that eventually was designated for the in-patient hospice program. By last year, donations to the hospice project totaled $2.4 million. That number has now grown to $4.2 million.

Fundraising continues to cover the $5.3 million cost of beginning the in-patient hospice program.

Bayless, 93, said she looks forward to being able to provide hospice patients the care they need in the new in-patient hospice unit.

She said she’s happy the opening is just months away, but after years of it being needed but remaining an elusive dream, she’s anxious for the program to begin. “Let’s get the show on the road,” she said. “We want to open the doors for those people.”

Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com

More information on Providence Hospice &Homecare of Snohomish County is available at washington.providence.org/in-home-services/hospice-and-home-care-of-snohomish-county/hospice. Anyone interested in making a donation to the in-patient hospital program may call 425-261-4800.