Hospices for AIDS Patients

Alan Citron’s article “Archdiocese Reveals Plans to Provide AIDS Hospices” (Metro, Feb. 18) reports the opening of “hospice-style shelters” by the Catholic Archdiocese.

The need for care is acute and the report that the archdiocese is addressing this matter is very heartening. What are hospice-style shelters? Hospices provide care for those persons who are in the last days of life. The specially trained interdisciplinary medical team provides a quality of life addressing the medical, social, psychological and spiritual needs of the patient and their loved ones.

However, the subject of licensing such a facility brings up a more serious matter. The new state law referred to in the article is interesting. The AIDS Hospice Foundation is sponsoring three bills in Sacramento pertaining to licensing: 1) AIDS/hospice residential facilities authored by Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), 2) general hospice care administered by licensed health care givers, 3) congregate living facilities authored by Assemblyman Polanco. To our rather well-informed and educated knowledge, there are no imminent state laws now pending in Sacramento.

The Los Angeles AIDS Hospice Committee on behalf of the AIDS Hospice Foundation is the only organization that has come forward to introduce and work with the state Legislature on the matter of licensing of facilities for the care of persons with AIDS. The AIDS Hospice Foundation is developing an AIDS/hospice residential facility on the grounds of Barlow Hospital in Elysian Park (Metro, March 2).

As immediate past president of the Hospice Organization of Southern California, I am greatly concerned that hospice care is not a misused term and that that care is administered by those who are appropriately trained. The archdiocese is moving in the right direction where there is a great need, but this care will still be administered in unlicensed facilities without any means of quality control.

JOYCE D. GREEN

Legislative Liaison

L.A. AIDS Hospice Committee