Noteboom The Law Firm

VA Hospice Program Soothing Veterans

April 23, 2010 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), through their health care system and relationships with non-VA entities, provide end-of-life care for veterans. Approximately ¼ of all deaths in the U.S. every year are veterans and their special needs are the driving force to ensure they are given quality care at the end of their lives.

In an ironic twist, experiencing death up close and personal, and living with those experiences, allows veterans to live much fuller and richer lives. For some veterans, being so close to death inspires an enthusiasm for life. Veterans who have experienced death, and lived with death their entire lives, live and experience their deaths differently as well.

The VA Hospice and Palliative Care Initiative is allows the W.G. Hefner VA Medical Center Hospice Program to attempt to align and couple VA health care services with non-VA health care services providing end-of-life care. According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, more than 50,000 veterans a month die in their own homes. Compare that with the number of veterans dying in VA facilities: 4%.

Those numbers show the vital importance hospice organizations play in veterans' lives. Hospice care takers provide critical and soothing care to veterans in need, no matter where that veteran lives. One veteran commented he never heard a "no" from anyone giving him care and it made all the difference to him in his last days.