Agenda 11/12/2024 Item #16H 2 (Proclamation designating November as National Hospice and Palliative Care Month)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, 1.55 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 2018,
and that last year in Collier County, more than 3,000 people living with serious or life-
limiting illnesses 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 – 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 2024 be designated as
NATIONAL HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE MONTH
DONE AND ORDERED THIS 12th Day of November 2024.
Board of County Commissioners
Collier County, Florida
Chris Hall, Chairman
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