Hospice of Washington County excited for new home

By Molly Roberts
Posted 1/18/22

It’s a night-and-day difference, the difference between old home of Hospice of Washington County and their new facility.

The old facility, which was previously the county DOT building, …

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Hospice of Washington County excited for new home

Posted

It’s a night-and-day difference, the difference between old home of Hospice of Washington County and their new facility.

The old facility, which was previously the county DOT building, constantly floods. Executive Director Katrina Altenhofen said she has to run a sump pump 24/7 just to keep the basement dry — turn that sump pump off and the building floods within 45 minutes. There are cracks in the walls. The building is shifting off the foundation. One wall is at risk of crumbling in. The basement is so cold it must be heated with space heaters throughout the year.

“Everyone in here deals with death on a daily basis. We look at it that death is inevitable… but it does take a toll. When you’re coming back to a basement that floods constantly, it’s not inviting,” Altenhofen said. “If will be so nice to come back to an inviting space that gives you a moment to say, ‘OK, I can do this. We’ve done seven admits today, five referrals, but I’ve got a tranquil place to come back to.”

The new facility is a $1.2 million dollar project built just behind the existing building—but it is built on a cement slab and doesn’t have a basement. The new home of Hospice of Washington County will provide office space for the entire staff, as well as a kitchen, on-call room, meeting rooms and storage space. Right now, the on-call room, where nurses might spend the night, is in a bathroom. The new space will also be ADA compliant.

Hospice of Washington County is a not-for-profit hospice that serves a 50-mile radius around Washington, a service area that includes seven counties. Altenhofen said her organization serves an average of 20 patients on any given day.

“I call us the mom-and-pop hospice agency because that’s what we are,” Altenhofen said. “Our nurses are from this area, our social worker is from this area, most of the staff are from the Washington County area and have been invested in this community for a long time.”

The Hospice of Washington County staff includes nurses, hospice aids, CNAs, a social worker, spiritual support, grief support, massage practitioners and music therapists.

“You have a choice to go to whatever hospice you want, just like anything else. We would hope that folks would want our hospice service, just given the fact that we don’t charge you for anything,” Altenhofen said. “We do fundraisers… so there isn’t a cost to the family. We don’t have to provide music and massage, or we could provide it and charge people for it, but we don’t feel that that’s comfort care and compassionate care. Our rules say I only have to see you as a nurse every 14 days, but, again, that’s not compassionate care.”

Altenhofen said hospice care is unlike other types of medical practice where healthcare workers might encounter death, even with some regularity.

“You wind up forming a relationship with that individual. We are their confidant and the person that’s walking that journey with them. It can be disheartening,” she said.

But she encourages her staff to let their humanity show in their work.

“If you need to cry when the family cries, you cry when the family cries. That’s very helpful, making sure that the staff know that I don’t need them to be stoic, I need them to be human. That’s what that family wants. If it’s upsetting, that’s OK.”

Altenhofen said her team has a huddle every morning where they give updates about their patients — did they have a good night, a bad night, are they starting to actively die? — but also have a chance to talk amongst themselves about what they’re feeling and experiencing.

And now they’ll have a much more relaxing and comforting space to have those huddles.

Altenhofen said they started talking about a new location when she started in November 2016 but started seriously working on their campaign to raise money in 2019. They went door to door, wrote letters, gave interviews and wrote for grants, including being awarded a $400,000 grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation.

They are also in the final running for a grant from the Department of Agriculture to tear the old building down and turn it into a bioretention cell that will help negate floodwaters going into the sewer.

“The most astounding this is, it’s a $1.2 million project and we’re probably only $220,000 shy of making it a complete debt-free project, that we don’t have to have a loan,” Altenhofen said.

Hospice of Washington County was no stranger to fundraising; the organization holds several fundraisers every year in order to keep their service cost-free to their patients, including an annual soup supper, which will be held Tuesday, January 25 at the United Presbyterian church in Washington from 4:30 to 6:30.