THE PET PEACE of Mind program, offered by Community Home Health & Hospice, offers nonprofit hospices a program model for delivering in-home volunteer pet care services for hospice patients regardless of need.
Community Home Health & Hospice – a local, community-based nonprofit healthcare agency that supports the health care and independent living goals of each patient and their loved ones by delivering the highest quality, compassionate and dignified care – will soon be offering that same care to patients’ pets in Clark County.
Lacey Bleth, development coordinator for Community Home Health & Hospice, said the program for pets, called Pet Peace of Mind, is a national program that offers nonprofit hospices a program model for delivering in-home volunteer pet care services for hospice patients regardless of need.
Community Home was the first hospice agency in Washington state to offer the Pet Peace of Mind program to their hospice patients and their pets. The program was first started in Cowlitz County in 2012, and thanks to a $4,000 grant from The Giving Circle – a program of Nonprofit Network Southwest Washington – the organization plans to expand the Pet Peace of Mind program to serve their Clark County patients this year.
“We have served Clark County families since 1988, providing home care, home health, hospice and grief support services,” Bleth said. “We recently opened a new hospice care center in Salmon Creek in June 2015. Currently, our Pet Peace of Mind program serves Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties in Washington and Columbia County in Oregon. Following the opening of the care center, we have been working towards expanding our Pet Peace of Mind program to service our Clark County hospice patients.”
Some examples of pet care that the Pet Peace of Mind program provides include:
• Pet food and cat litter
• Transportation to veterinary appointments
• Routine veterinary care including vaccinations
• Preventative medications for fleas, ticks and heartworms
• Grooming services
• Foster care or temporary placement
• Rehoming of pets when hospice patients pass away
Bleth said, according to the U.S. census in 2014, there are approximately 62,239 people in Clark County who are 65 years old and older. The 2015-2016 APPA National Pet Owners Survey reports approximately 65 percent of U.S. households own at least one pet. This data illustrates that there are approximately 40,456 people in Clark County over the age of 65, and aging, with pets as loved ones.
Bleth said there are many ways the Pet Peace of Mind program will benefit the Clark County community, including:
• This program will help hospice patients in the organization’s care and their pets stay together and complete their end-of-life journey without worrying about their pet’s current or future needs.
• Pets provide love and acceptance at a time when human friends and family struggle with their own fears about death, and the physical and mental changes associated with dying.
• Pets provide a remnant of normal life for the caregiver. While everything else is changing for the caregiver, pets stay the same.
• Pets give the patient and caregiver something else to focus on, something else to talk about besides dying.
For more information on the Pet Peace of Mind program, contact Sheryl Reeder, volunteer coordinator, at (360) 414-5433 or at Sheryl.Reeder@chhh.org.
