Backup Documents 11/14/2023 Item # 4A �.i
PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, for more than 40 years, hospice has helped provide comfort and dignity to millions of
people, allowing them to spend their final months at home, surrounded by their loved ones;
and
WHEREAS, the hospice model involves an interdisciplinary, team-oriented approach to treatment,
including expert medical care, quality symptom control, and comprehensive pain management
as a foundation of care; and
WHEREAS, beyond providing physical treatment, hospice attends to the patient's emotional, spiritual,
and family needs, and provides family services like respite care and bereavement counseling;
and
WHEREAS, palliative care delivers expertise to improve quality of life, and relief from pain can be
provided at any time during an illness, and hospices are some of the best providers of
community-based palliative care; and
WHEREAS, hospice demonstrates how health care can - and should - work at its best for its patient;
and
WHEREAS, 1.72 million Americans living with life-limiting illness and their families received care from
the nation's hospice programs in communities throughout the United States in 2020, and
that last year in Collier County, more than 3,000 people living with a serious or life-limiting
illness were cared for by the nonprofit Avow hospice and palliative care companies; and
WHEREAS, hospice and palliative care organizations are advocates and educators about advance care
planning that help individuals make decisions about the care they want; and
WHEREAS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have pledged to put patients first in all
of its programs including hospice, by ensuring a coordinated and patient-led approach to
care, protecting patient choice, and access to individualized services based on a patient's
unique care needs and wishes;
NOW THEREFORE, be it proclaimed by the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County, Florida,
that November 2023 be designated as
NATIONAL HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE MONTH
DONE AND ORDERED THIS 14'}' Day of November 2023.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA
RICK LO , CHAIRMAN