120511 Hospice launches capital campaign for inpatient facility

  • By Sharon Haught
  • November 29, 2011
  • 280
                        
Summary: Hospice’s new inpatient facility will have the feel of “a place like home”. The organization that has guided patients and families through end of life journeys will soon have a new home. During a kick-off celebration for the “A Place Like Home” capital campaign in November, Hospice and Palliative Care of Greater Wayne County announced plans to construct a new $8.6 million facility on Akron Road that will include a 12 unit inpatient care facility and administrative space for the organization. According to Executive Director Colleen Nettleton, Hospice has grown substantially since it saw its first patients in 1982. “From eight patients that first year we have grown to be able to serve 682 patients in 2010 and have gone from a volunteer director and contracted nursing staff to a staff of 89 today,” said Nettleton. By the early 2000’s Hospice officials began to seriously consider constructing an inpatient unit for patients who could no longer be cared for in their homes and were looking for an alternative to hospital care or out-of-county inpatient Hospice care. The search for the perfect site got underway in earnest in 2004. According to Nettleton Hospice’s site selection criteria included a location with access to city services that was centrally located near major thoroughfares that would be easy for families to get to. The organization was also looking for “a serene, quiet, peaceful atmosphere,” Nettleton added. The organization found what they were looking for in the 19 acre property located at 1900 Akron Road behind the former Topovski Construction Company building, which Hospice purchased in 2010. According to Capital Campaign Committee Chair Tim Pettorini, the new 30,000 square foot facility will be constructed on two levels. The top level will include administrative offices, a large meeting room, a kitchen “and many other family areas and spaces including a lounge that looks more like a living room than a hospital lounge,” said Pettorini. The bottom floor will contain the actual inpatient unit where the inpatient rooms will be located. “These rooms are specifically designed with the Hospice patient in mind. That means that from the chairs, to the beds to the flower arrangements everything is designed with our patients in mind,” said Pettorini adding “even the HVAC system and the way the facility and rooms will smell will not have that institutional type of odor that we are all probably familiar with.” Pettorini noted that the new facility will not “replace the homecare in which we have specialized since our inception. This is specifically for patients that need a higher level of 24 hour a day care.” According to Pettorini the construction of the $8.6 million facility, the groundbreaking for which is planned for March, is being financed through a variety of means. “Hospice has saved, over time, $1.5 million to contribute to this project. Our capital campaign aims to raise $4 million of that money. The balance of that will be generated either through grants or a loan that we have already secured through a local bank,” Pettorini noted. According to Pettorini, the Capital Campaign has already raised over $2.7 million towards its ambitious $4 million goal. “This is really the right thing to do for our community,” Pettorini said. “We’ve always prided ourselves on being on the cutting edge of providing all types of services for our community members from our schools to our hospitals and everything in between. This impatient unit is the missing piece and could truly be the crown jewel of our community,” said Pettorini. “The Hospice inpatient unit will have impacts on many patients and countless families as they face the end of the life journey,” said Pettorini adding “this project and this facility will truly be a place like home.” To learn more about Hospice and Palliative Care of Greater Wayne County log on to www.wchospice.org.


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