AIDS Facility in Van Nuys Offers Home to the Dying

When Robert Marsh says he doesn’t fear death, it is easy to believe.

At age 9, Marsh and his brother survived when the church in which they sought shelter was bombed during a Nazi air raid over Holland in World War II. While in his early 20s, Marsh contracted pleurisy and had to be hospitalized for a year. In 1980, he survived an electrical shock while fidgeting with sound equipment at his home in Hancock Park.

“I’ve lived with pain practically all my life,” said the 52-year-old Marsh, who, until a year ago, worked full time as a conservator of antique clocks at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu.

Those brushes with fate helped prepare him for his new job as director of an AIDS hospice--first at Hughes House in Hollywood and then at Pioneer Home, the first such residential facility for AIDS patients in the San Fernando Valley.

Demanding Position

Although the job is demanding both physically--12- and 15-hour workdays are not unusual--as well as emotionally, Marsh said he and his staff of five believe that the rewards outweigh the demands.

“There’s a lot of love, a lot of sharing,” Marsh said. “You become family.”

Since the five-bed hospice opened Nov. 16, three patients have died, Marsh said. The patients who come to the hospice are expected to live only six months or less.

“Comfort is more important than anything,” Marsh said. “These people are living the last days of their lives, and I want them to be better than they’ve ever lived. We spoil them rotten.”

Sometimes the patients’ demands are a bit unusual. One man requested barbecued ribs for breakfast on the day a reporter visited. “He’ll see what he can get away with,” Marsh said, laughing.

Still, Ben Jamin, a 25-year-old patient at the hospice, said he appreciates the attention after spending a few months in a county hospital. “It makes you feel more at home rather than in a sterile hospital. You have more attention, more care and more love. And the food is better.”

‘We’re Here’

One thing Marsh and his assistants assure all patients of is that they will not be alone when they die. “I do my damnedest to stay with them, to let them know it’s OK, we’re here,” said Marsh, who once sat with a patient 36 hours straight before he died. “You just love the hell out of them.”

This week, in fact, Marsh will accompany a close friend who has AIDS on a one-week trip to Hawaii. His friend requested that Marsh go with him. “It is his dying wish, so I’m going to go.”

Marsh has a simple philosophy about death: “I am convinced that when people die, they are met by the ones they love. I’ve seen it. I’ve had too many people die in my arms.”

For all their work, Marsh and his staff still worry that the public holds some misconceptions of what a hospice is all about. “People think it’s a mini-hospital. It’s not. It’s a home.”

That distinction was made clear when Marsh managed Hughes House, which is operated by Hospice Los Angeles/Long Beach, the same nonprofit agency that runs Pioneer Home.

Controversial Facility

From the day it opened in January, 1988, Hughes House was the center of controversy. Citing concerns about the disease as well as fears about declining property values, dozens of Hollywood residents waged a bitter campaign to force the hospice out of the neighborhood. Many sent petitions and letters to public officials contending that such a facility did not belong in an area zoned for residential use.

“We didn’t know if they were going to burn us out or bomb us out,” Marsh recalled. “It was the most stressful time in my life.”

Marsh said he considered quitting. In August the AIDS virus claimed the life of a close friend. He collapsed under the strain and had to take off several weeks to recover.

During that time, the Los Angeles Zoning Board ruled that Hughes House could continue to operate, and soon afterward the hospice agency announced plans to open another facility.

When he returned to work, Marsh agreed to take the job at Pioneer Home. “Once this work gets into your blood, it’s like the AIDS virus,” Marsh said. “It doesn’t leave you.”

No Opposition

Unlike Hughes House, Pioneer Home has not met with neighborhood opposition. One reason may be that Pioneer Home is in an area zoned for both commercial and residential use, Marsh said.

In fact, some of the hospice’s neighbors in Van Nuys have been outright generous. Over the Christmas holidays, for example, the hospice received dozens of boxes of gifts, food and supplies, many dropped off anonymously.

“The community here has been wonderful,” Marsh said. “I want them to know we appreciate their support. Without it, it would be difficult to exist.”

Marsh said Hospice Los Angeles/Long Beach is planning to open another facility in West Hollywood this year. Like the other three hospices the agency operates, it will be funded by Los Angeles County, private donations and medical insurance.

Operating costs at Pioneer Home average about $10,000 a month, Marsh said. In addition to the five staff members, which include three certified nurses’ assistants and two attendants, the hospice also contracts with a home-care agency that provides nurses and social workers. It also has a doctor on call 24 hours a day.

Praised by Colleagues

Marsh, who is working toward his certified nurse’s assistant certificate, is praised by colleagues for his dedication and commitment to helping dying AIDS patients.

“Robert has the same purpose as I do,” said Lee Rubio, resident manager of the agency’s 13-bed Padua House in Long Beach. “We’ve both lost people rather close to us. He’s a very compassionate, very capable person and a tremendous asset to the corporation.”

John Schunhoff, assistant director of the county health department’s AIDS program office, said there are now 22 hospices or hospice-style residences in the county, with a total of 100 beds.

By the end of 1988, Schunhoff said, 6,135 cases of AIDS had been reported in the county, and 3,825 deaths were attributed to the disease.