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people didn't need to die in a hospital room, alone and in pain. At the time, hospice operated out of a small office in the Regional Oncology Center at Halifax Medical Center in Daytona
Beach.
Today, Hospice of Volusia/Flagler has grown from an average daily census of 35 in 1986 to more than 500 patients cared for by 350 full-time professional employees and
over 500 volunteers, many of whom are cared for in the home-like setting of the Hospice Care Center in Port Orange, Fla. More than 23,000 patients have been served in Volusia and Flagler counties on
Florida's Funcoast.
Some of the features that set Hospice of Volusia/Flagler apart from other hospice programs:
- Operates the largest inpatient care center in Central Florida;
- Its nurses are certified in hospice and palliative care;
- Social workers are licensed master's level counselors;
- 11 full-time and one part-time ordained clergy are on staff and on-call;
- Specially trained home health aides; and
- Highly trained volunteers.
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To make a donation to Hospice of Volusia/Flagler click here >>>
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The word hospice comes from the same linguistic root as our words for hospital and hospitality and suggests similar notions of shelter, respite and caring. During the Middle Ages religious orders created hospices as sanctuaries for pilgrims on the perilous journey from Europe to the Holy Land. The metaphor of the dying as travelers on a journey from this world to the next helped to shape the evolving mission of hospice as a place of refuge and solace.
Dame Cicely Saunders, a physician, founded St. Christopher's Hospice in Great Britain, the original model for the movement in the United States. During a speaking tour
in 1963, Dame Cicely spoke at the Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. Thereafter, Florence Wald, Dean of the Nursing School and Edward Dobihal Director of Religious Ministries at Yale New
Haven began investigating ways to bring Dr. Saunders' hospice vision to our shores. Thus, the first American hospice was opened in New Haven in 1964.
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