Rural Mississippi Facility Brings Christian Mandate to Hospice Care
by Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker
November 3, 2005
(AgapePress) - - November is "National Hospice Month," and an administrator of a Christian inpatient hospice says her organization has a unique opportunity to minister to the terminally ill in Northeast Mississippi as well as to be part of a national effort to improve hospice care in rural communities across the United States. Linda Gholston is the administrator of Sanctuary Hospice House in Tupelo, Mississippi. She says Sanctuary is the first inpatient hospice in rural America, created through a 2003 federal act. However, she says the real idea for developing a rural, inpatient, end-of-life care facility came in 2000 when God began drawing a group of caring Christians together.
That group of concerned citizens started talking about the need for such a place and corralled government help, Gholston explains. As a result, she says, "They were able to get a clause in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 that will allow a study whereby up to three hospices can operate in rural America and participate with Medicare in a study."
The administrator of the Tupelo, Mississippi, facility says the five-year government study will explore if there is need for inpatient hospice care among rural Medicare recipients with no other appropriate caregiver. She notes that this particular study involves Sanctuary and another inpatient hospice in Florida.
Another federal bill, introduced by Congressman Roger F. Wicker (R-Mississippi) and Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi), will allow for the further development of Sanctuary Hospice House. The Rural Communities Hospice Care Access Improvement Act is designed to improve access to inpatient hospice care in rural areas by lifting limits on inpatient hospice services in certain circumstances.
The national effort to enact these improvements is supported by a host of health and community organizations, including the American Medical Association, the Hospice Association of America, the National Oncology Nurses Association, the National Alliance for Children and Families, and many others.
Gholston says it was obvious to each of the Tupelo hospice's founders from the outset that God had spoken to each of them in various ways, which is why the facility was created as and remains a distinctly faith-based institution. "If you come out to see Sanctuary," she notes, "you will see that it is filled with Christian symbols, and we're going to be here to care for people in a Christ-like manner."
Sanctuary Hospice House does accept patients from all faith and philosophical backgrounds, Gholston adds, but she points out that this does not change its primary mission. She says the hospice's vision statement describes the staff members' mandate as, in part, to aspire daily to be the hands and feet of Jesus to all they serve.
