Peachy Metzner introduced our speaker, He said Janet Rinehart has been a volunteer with Ohio’s Hospice of Dayton since 2012. She has served as a respite and patient care relief provider and works with the group’s Speakers Bureau program.
He said she is an alumni of Miami University, where she received her bachelor of science degree in education. She taught elementary school for two years in Ohio and taught in Germany and the Philippines for five years with the Department of Defense Overseas Schools.
She then went to the University of Albuquerque where she earned her nursing degree and spent seven years in medical/surgical and cardiology units at Miami Valley Hospital, he said. After earning her Masters in Management from Central Michigan, she worked with and demonstrated computer software for hospitals and clinics, traveling the U.S. and Canada.
Her last active position was with Premier Health as Manager for the implementation of software in a physician’s office, Peachy said.
Janet has been retired for 4 years now but has not slowed down, he said. She works with fourth and fifth graders at a local elementary school during the school year as well as volunteers with Clothes that Work and Ohio’s Hospice of Dayton.
Janet said she had just come back from a Baltic cruise in Norway, so we should forgive any errors in thought and fact she might make.
She explained the meaning of Hospice, a respite, and place to rest. A hospice was started outside of London in 1967, she said.
Dayton resident Betty Schmoll helped establish hospice care in Dayton in 1978, Janet said. Schmoll pulled support from all area hospitals and dedicated volunteers and initially offered services in patient homes and 13 inpatient beds in a wing at St. Elizabeth Medical Center. It was founded as and remains a community based non-profit care provider to those with life-limiting illnesses, Janet said.
Construction of a Hospice House was completed on 17 acres on Wilmington Pike in 1990 with the help of 14,000 donors. It was expanded in 1996. The grounds and gardens are maintained with flowers and plants and a pond for fishing for the use by patients and their families, Janet said.
From 1982 to 1986 government began providing medicare benefits for hospice service Janet said. Now it is being done full time with medicare and medicaid and insurance help.
In 2013, Hospice of Dayton had 600 patients a day and four to five thousand patients a year, Janet said. There are 200 nurses and 700 volunteers, she said.
It operates as a non-profit, and no one is turned away, she said.
They rely on insurance and medicare and donations and fund-raisers, and the Heirlooms Shoppes for funding.
The two Heirlooms Shoppes take donations from the public of furniture, home accessories, from pictures to glassware, books, sets of dishes, jewelry, etc., and sell the donated items to the public, with the proceeds going to Hospice. Leather sofas and china cabinets, Hammond organs and reclining chairs, antiques and new items, move through the shop, often coming one day and leaving the same day, as prices are often half of what they would be in another shop.
The Heirlooms Shoppe in Washington Twp. is just west of the Big Lots store on Miamisburg-Centerville Road. The other shop is on Wilmington Ave. in Dayton.
The goals of Hospice are for the patient to have a self-determined life, with closure for the patient, physician and family, Janet said. Hospice offers respite care, comfort care, but not any medical treatment, she said. The patient may still choose to get treatment from their own doctor.
There’s fishing in the pond by the Wilmington facility and a Veteran’s organization within Hospice goes to visit Veterans, Janet said. There are seven full-time physicians on staff.
Hospice involves the whole family, and a Pathway service is offered after a death occurs, with grief counselors available, she said.
The requirement for Hospice help is that the person be diagnosed as having a terminal life span of six months, but that can be a moving term, as the person might leave for a month or so and come in for end of life support. They can also have home care or care in a nursing home.
Hospice is not a somber place, Janet said. There is transportation, and respite care packages with sachets of lavender and blankets or afghans, music therapy and pet therapy, etc.
She mentions some of the myths people believe about Hospice….….noting it does not have to mean the end of life or one’s doctor’s care. One does not have to have cancer to use Hospice. Dementia and congestive heart failure are often reasons for using Hospice services, she said.
It is not just a place, but a service, with 53 beds at the Dayton site and 15 beds in Miami County.
Another myth is that Hospice is just for the patient. “It is very much a family thing,” Janet said. At night there’s a light show on the ceiling of patients’ rooms that is often a very spiritual thing. The patient and family often feel very calm and connected, she said.
A number of members offered brief remembrances of their own family’s experience with Hospice, from Arnie Biondo, Ron Hollenbeck, Peachy Metzner, Kitty Ullmer, and Fred Weir, who said he is currently under Hospice care. “It’s good,” he said.
The hospice team includes nurses, social workers, home health aides, volunteers, chaplains, and bereavement counselors.
Hospice does not mean giving up hope or that death is imminent. “The earlier an individual receives hospice care, the more opportunity there is to stabilize a patient’s medical condition and address other needs,” according to a Hospice bulletin. “Hospice care focuses on quality of life and making the most of life. Hospice helps patients experience joy, reminiscence, laughter, reunion, and hope.”
Hospice of Dayton has a 3k/5k Remembrance Walk on Oct. 22, 1016, our Pancake Breakfast Day. It is at 10 a.m. It will be at the Hospice of Dayton Campus. Proceeds benefit Hospice of Dayton.
Come and Sea Outrageous 3 Under the Sea Hoirshow will be held Sept. 28 at the Ponitz Center, Sinclair Community College, Building 12 at 444 W. Third St. Free parking, lot C. Proceeds benefit Ohio’s Hospice of Dayton patient care and services. 11 a.m. registration and silent auction; 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Hair show and Luncheon. Cost is $70 for individual ticket. Presenting sponsor is Premier Health. For sponsorship information you can contact Marsha Bernard at
mbernard@hospiceofdayton.org or call 937-258-5537.
To volunteer to help Hospice, call 937-256-9507, ext. 1164 and request an application packet or go online to
www.hospiceofdayton.org and click the link that says “Volunteers.”
Note: there is also a Hospice of Butler and Warren Counties.
Hospice of Dayton is located at 324 Wilmington Ave., Dayton, OH, 45420.
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