Special Report
WORLD OF HOSPICE
Never Alone from page All
"I'm seeing so many who are alone,
whose children live across the country and
just can't pick up and be there Shiovitz
says. "It's always such an honor to be with
a patient who has nobody else."
Above: "Nathan Shiovitz [pictured at
the bedside of the late Rae Cooper] has
an ability to make people relax and feel
comfort. His demeanor is nonjudgmental
and kind and he listens actively with an
open heart," says geriatric specialist Dr.
Kathleen Murphy.
Left: Orna Moreton, who eventually died
after suffering from multiple sclerosis,
had said that she found new meaning
in life through weekly visits from Rabbi
Hershel Klainberq and others of the
Jewish Hospice & Chaplaincy Network.
That's evident at the weekly patient
meeting of those at the heart of the Jewish
Hospice and Chaplaincy Network. Each
patient who has died that week is remem-
bered, whether they entered hospice
during the last hours of their lives or had
been in the program for weeks or months.
And everyone is made aware of new
patients as well as those who are in pallia-
tive (comfort) care.
The rabbis, social workers and coordina-
tors sitting around the table are getting
ready to mark the organization's 10th
anniversary by continuing to fulfill their
founding promise: "No Jew Is Ever Alone."
At the same time, they aren't out to
interfere with any family or to duplicate
services provided by other Jewish agencies
or existing hospice programs.
"The best work that we do is connect-
ing a family with its rabbi:' Freedman
says. "We don't need to be each family's
spiritual caregiver. We're there when we're
needed. We step back when we're not"
Care statistics speak for themselves. In its
first full year of existence, JHCN assisted
120 hospice and palliative care patients;
last year that number was 530. The aver-
age daily patient census rose from 27 to
143 over the same period.
Haddad and Freedman worked together
from the beginning. "That was when
Bunny's office was his briefcase in his car:'
Haddad recalls.
Now they occupy six rooms on the
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April 2 . 2009
second floor of the Jewish Family Service
(JFS) building in West Bloomfield, with
access to additional space.
Southfield-based Ira Kaufman Chapel
funeral director David Techner estimates
that Jewish Hospice is now involved with
55-60 percent of Jews who die in Metro
Detroit, working with 15 different clini-
cally based hospices. At the same time,
135 volunteers have been trained by JHCN
over the years.
"Hospice wasn't comfortable for any-
body when we started 10 years ago:' says
Techner, president and chairman of the
board of JHCN since Day One. "We had to
convince people it's OK to have hospice.
We had to make them understand that
the medical community focuses on cure;
hospice focuses on comfort. It's not about
death; it's about end of life.
"People now pick up the phone and call
hospice," he says. "I think it's exceeded our
expectations. It's very diverse; we have
everybody on board."
Along with Freedman, it's Nathan Shiovitz
who makes sure that at the end of life,
someone from Jewish Hospice is there
for any patient and his or her family who
wants the assistance. Five rabbis, represent-
ing Orthodox, Conservative and Reform
Jewry, are on staff to respond as well as
other staff members and volunteers.
"Jewish Hospice is not a place — it's
wherever you are says Shiovitz, who is
JHCN's patient coordinator. "That could be
at home, in the hospital, in a nursing home
... most people are not in hospice facilities.
"I'm on call 24-7, especially on holi-
days:' says Shiovitz, who was house-bound
himself for many years and uses two
canes to propel his lean frame from bed-
side to bedside.
He guides the admission process when
JHCN refers a patient to hospice or when a
new patient is referred by an area hospital,
hospice organization or nursing home,
virtually all of which call in JHCN for their
Jewish patients.
"It's a very intense period — both for
the patient and family:' he says. "They hear
hospice and they hear 'death.'"
A doctor must certify that life expectan-
cy is six months for insurance to pay for
hospice medical care. A medical hospice
must provide spiritual care to meet insur-
ance requirements. JHCN doesn't charge
for its part in the process.
Hospice may be appropriate when
you have a disease that isn't curable, you
choose not to take the cure or you are in
the final stages of dying, Shiovitz says.
"Some patients surprise you and last lon-
ger or get better."
Over the years, he has helped bring an
estranged daughter to her father's bedside;
facilitated the wish of a young cancer-
stricken volunteer firefighter to have
firefighters participate in his funeral; and
moved a woman suffering from untreated
advanced breast cancer from deplorable
conditions on Detroit's Cass Corridor to
nursing home care until she died.
Stories of how JHCN helps are many. Here
are a few:
•After Nancy Nida's dad, Harry Paull,
received his terminal diagnosis, the family
turned to St. John Hospice for clinical care
headed by clinical nursing supervisor Rose
Fenster and JHCN for spiritual sustenance.
"Rabbi Klainberg would daven with him
and Nathan [Shiovitz] came to talk with
him at the Heritage in Southfield," says
Nida, who lives in Bloomfield Hills.
Her father's six-months-to-live diagno-
sis turned into four years. He died in 2007
at age 94. "All the stimulation and conver-
sation and having this parade of people
kept him alive she says.
"We got the support, companionship and
comfort from all of them;' Nida says. "It was
wonderful. They're a special group."
• Edith Polk also developed a special
bond with JHCN chaplain Rabbi Hershel
Kleinberg during her 11/2 years in Hospice
of Michigan's residential facility (which
has since closed), says her son Richard
Polk, an attorney from Huntington Woods.
His mother, who died in 2002 at age 84,
had a degenerative neurological condition,
but never lost her ability to communicate.
"She was not a religious person at all',' Polk
said, but she developed this wonderful
relationship with Rabbi Klainberg, who is
Orthodox, that began when they first met.
When she explained that she wasn't
observant, he said: "I promise not to
try and convert you:' Polk recalls. Her
response: "What makes you think I won't
try and convert you?"
She ended up asking him to officiate
at her funeral. "One of the things that's
overlooked," Polk says, "is how much help
hospice provides not just to the patient
but to the family."
Hela Jutkiewicz, who recently turned 90,
is one of Klainberg's newest charges after
falling in her Oak Park home, where she
lives alone.
The bright-eyed, animated woman talks
freely of her worries and of her Holocaust
experience from her room at Danto Health
Care Center in West Bloomfield, where she
is receiving physical therapy.
She wonders how she'll manage when
she returns home. "I don't know how
it will be," she says. "I try until now [to
do] everything myself. I hope the Jewish
community will help."
"Because you are a Holocaust survivor,