Our Hospice of South Central Indiana now has a specialized room to provide end-of-life care for a child in the final phases of a terminal illness after a local couple and a life insurance company made a generous donation.
Matt and Cheryl Carothers, along with Matt Carother’s team at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., recently donated money to help Our Hospice, which provides end-of-life comfort care for all ages, to continue providing in-patient pediatric care, a relative rarity in the world of hospice care.
In the room, a series of paintings adorn the wall — a giraffe, a rabbit with oversized black spectacles and a bow tie and a raccoon with a blue striped tie.
A pair of hand puppets are on the couch, and on the other side of the room is a rocking chair, video monitor, two video cameras and a crib. The crib had been specially designed to care for sick children. It can move up and down like a hospital bed and can accommodate portable oxygen, among other features.
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The crib, video monitor and cameras were purchased with the money donated by the Carothers and Northwestern Mutual employees. The rest of the money they donated will be used to purchase toys, artwork, continuing education for staff and provide a photography package for family portraits to be taken with patients, said Laura Leonard, Our Hospice president.
The donation was partly motivated by the Carothers’ personal experience, though they have never had a child in hospice care. When the couple’s youngest child was 7 months old, she needed to have a potentially life-saving heart procedure at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Matt Carothers said.
“We spent seven weeks in the (intensive care unit) at Riley,” Matt Carothers said. “And what we quickly found out was that even though we didn’t want to be there, the people who were there at Riley were like our angels. They really walked alongside us and made that experience a little less stressful … When you’re in that moment where you think your child might not make it, you’re just literally hanging on to anything. To have people to walk along side you is just invaluable.”
Matt Carothers said they also chose to support Our Hospice because they wanted to contribute to a cause that has “some type of faith-based component to it,” along with one that would help children and aligned closely with Northwestern Mutual’s corporate initiative. “As we thought about it and prayed about it, it just became obvious that this is what we wanted to support,” he said.
Cheryl Carothers said that knowing that some children are in hospice care “just grieves me,” and she tries to pray for them and other patients every time she drives past Our Hospice in Columbus.
“It just tugs at your heartstrings,” Cheryl Carothers said. “When our youngest was up at Riley, we knew that every day she was getting better and better. So I can’t imagine having a child where you know that every day they’re getting worse and worse. It has to be just devastating for parents to go through this.”
In-patient pediatric hospice care, as well as pediatric hospice care in general, is not common, Leonard said.
“Most hospices don’t have an in-patient facility, and the majority of hospices do not take children because they are difficult cases and their care is a lot more expensive because they are allowed to continue with their treatment,” Leonard said.
“Adults, when they choose hospice, the curative treatment stops. But for children, they deserve an opportunity in case they could get better. So children maintain their curative treatment, which the hospice is responsible for providing. We choose to do it because that’s our mission,” she said.
Our Hospice officials declined to say the amount of the donation, but did say it was “generous.” So far, Our Hospice has used the donated money to purchase the crib and has sent two nurses to Texas to attend a special training about pediatric hospice care. Many of the toys and decorations, however, have not yet been purchased because Our Hospice typically customizes the room for children who are patients based on the child’s likes and interests, Leonard said.
“We have the very basics because we don’t know if we’re going to get a boy, a girl, an infant, or a child,” Leonard said. “We add different details as soon as the child comes in. The most important thing to us was the crib. We had one that we had inherited from (Columbus Regional Hospital), but this is a much more suitable bed.”
Our Hospice is a not-for-profit organization that provides end-of-life comfort care to all ages in a 16-county area of south central Indiana. All patients at Our Hospice have received a prognosis by a physician of six months or less to live, Singer said.
Last year, the hospice served 1,280 patients, according to its annual report. Approximately 33 percent of the patients were cared for at Our Hospice’s facility, located at 2626 E. 17th Street in Columbus.
The facility can house up to 14 patients at one time. Currently, four children are under the care of the not-for-profit hospice at the children’s homes. Our Hospice typically serves three to five children each year, said Suzie Singer, manager of marketing and planning at Our Hospice.
Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance cover many services provided by Our Hospice, according to the organization’s website. Services that are not covered are typically funded through private donations, foundations and grants and funding from the United Way and United Fund. Our Hospice provides its patients with a team of doctors, nurses, social workers who serve as counselors and chaplains of different denominations for spiritual support.
“I really don’t want the spotlight on us,” Matt Carothers said. “I want the spotlight on the real heroes, and the real heroes are the kids and their families who are here with what they’re going through and all of the people here at Our Hospice who are getting up every day and coming in here and walking alongside those families. Those are the ones that we as a community need to acknowledge and support because they’re the ones in here every day serving those families.”
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Visit ourhospice.org or call 812-314-8000 for more information about Our Hospice of South Central Indiana.
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