What is Palliative Care?
Palliative Care affirms life by supporting the goals of the patient and family for the future, including their hopes for cure or life-prolongation, as well as their hopes for peace and dignity throughout the course of illness, the dying process and death.

St. Mary's Palliative Care:

• Is available to all patients regardless of their diagnosis, prognosis, or location within the hospital
• Provides a full continuum of holistic care that aims to relieve suffering and optimize the quality of life for patients with a chronic, debilitating or life-limiting illness and their families.

The Purpose of Palliative Care:

• Relieve suffering, improve the quality of life
• Serve as coordinator of care to facilitate communications to promote patient dignity and respect at any time, especially at the end-of-life, when the voice of the patient may not be heard.
• Provides education and support to hospital staff regarding palliative and end of life symptom management, communication issues and goals of care conflicts.
• Ensures that patient's treatments are goal directed rather than disease directed – patient's goals drive the treatments not technology

Palliative care assists patients and families by:

• Listening to feelings and concerns
• Serving as an advocate to ensure that the patient's desires for care are recognized and honored within an environment of acceptance and dignity
• Working through tough decisions
• Relieving suffering through symptom management to promote enhanced quality of life
• Educating to help guide choices for current and future care

Benefits of Palliative Care:

• Improved patient, caregiver and staff satisfaction with delivery of care
• Affirms life by supporting the patient's and family's goals for the future
• Improved quality of care for patients and their families
• Reduction in distress of the dying patient
• Meets the needs of an aging population
• Assists in compliance with hospital care quality

For more information, contact Tanya Adcock, Palliative Care Coordinator, at 706-201-4675.

St. Mary's two new Palliative Care Suites provide a comfortable, peaceful setting for the patient and his or her loved ones. Pictured here: the family side of a suite.