Kerrville, TX – Over the past 10 years, the Peterson Hospice Blessing Fund has provided assistance to more than 350 patients and their families. It is funded solely through generous donations and is restricted to Hospice patients with the requests being distributed through committee oversight. The Blessing Fund has allowed us to provide a variety of services ranging from big ticket items to less expensive needs, resulting in enhanced quality of life for patients and their families. Our success initiated efforts to establish the Home Health Compassion Fund to specifically serve our Home Health patients.
At Peterson Home Health, we have the unique opportunity to truly step into another individual’s world. Home Health provides skilled care, companionship, and meets the needs of those who were recently discharged from the hospital and are still recovering. Our patients open their homes and allow us into some of the most vulnerable areas of their lives. This is a privilege. While we are referred to provide medical care, we take pride in the opportunity to provide personal care, getting to know our patients and developing relationships that go beyond bandages and medications.
We recently cared for an elderly patient living in a dilapidated home. She and her husband lived in that home for many years until both the home and their health were showing decline. The patient was primarily bedbound but could collect enough energy to assist in transferring herself into a wheelchair with the help of her husband of 55 years. Home Health was referred by her physician to provide occupational and physical therapy, focusing on basic strengthening exercises and transfer skills to ensure safety.
After years on a fixed income and experiencing both declining health and an aging home, the patient’s limitations grew. Her ability to access the bathroom as well as the shower became physically impossible. Without funds to make wheelchair modifications, the patient and her spouse were left with limited choices. Their solution was for her husband to wheel her out into the backyard and run a garden hose as a makeshift shower. Peterson Home Health was able to provide personal hygiene care while in the home, however, with an established Compassion Fund, the bathroom could have easily been modified to allow her the dignity to bathe in the privacy of her own home while supporting the couple to remain as independent as possible.
As the only non-profit Home Health agency in the Hill Country, Peterson Health will turn no one away from compassionate care. With your generous support of the Compassion Fund, we will be able to help our patients in ways no one else does. We can treat the whole patient, allowing every person receiving Home Health services to achieve a better health outcome and an improved quality of life.
To donate to the Peterson Home Health Compassion Fund, visit PetersonHealthFoundation-Bloom.Kindful.com.