‘Roadmap created to establish hospice and palliative care program’

In an interview on Friday, Gurusamy said when they started the hospice and palliative care program in Guam, they had only one patient on a daily level.

“Today we have 15 patients. So that’s 15 people who want to die at home. They choose to die at home and today we can make that happen for them in Guam,” said Gurusamy who is president of Health Services of the Pacific-Hospice.

For the CNMI, she said based on the information she received it is likely that within a year the Commonwealth will have a hospice program up and running.

One health care provider is reportedly now working to establish the first hospice program in the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth Cancer Association invited Gurusamy to a forum on how to establish such a program on Friday at the Commonwealth Health Center’s administrative conference room.

Those who attended the discussions were the stakeholders-physicians, social workers, funeral home owners, representatives from home care agencies, police officers, firefighters, and representatives from private schools.

Gurusamy said the meeting created a roadmap on how to get the program started and to really make it happen in the CNMI.

Gurusamy said the forum also help create very clear rules of the role of CCA as well as the health care providers.

“So hospice program is not going to be under CCA. It has to be a separate group of people-usually a health care provider-to do that work. They are Medicare certified,” she said.

CCA’s job, Gurusamy said, is to work with the community, work with the churches, and be a liaison among the lawmakers, the governor, and the government.

She said hospice is somebody who has a terminal illness that has given the prognosis of living less than six months.

She said these patients are referred to the program, which is run by a physician, a nurse, a social worker, massage therapist, transitional worker, a priest.

“It’s a whole team,” she said.

“Imagine if I was given the diagnosis of cancer and the doctor says you know, there is no further treatment for you. And the first thing that will go in my mind is now what’s next? Well I don’t want to die in a hospital. So I’ll say to a doctor, is there any way I can stay at home?” Gurusamy said.

If there is a hospice program it is possible, she pointed out.

“The next fear that we have is we don’t want to suffer as we die. So that what hospice program is all about,” she said.

When the patient dies in a hospice program, Gurusamy said, the nurse will go out, pronounce the patient dead and will call the funeral home, and the funeral home will take the patient.

Gurusamy said what she discovered on Saipan is that the funeral homes do not have a morgue.

She said the funeral homes on Saipan will need to pick up the patient and take him or her to the morgue in the hospital.

Gurusamy cited that in the CNMI, Public Law 17-35 was written and approved to support hospice and palliative care, but the problem now is that there is no such program to make this happen.

“So if somebody wanted to die at home today, they still could not on Saipan because there’s no hospice program,” she added.