Contact us:

Hospice Director - Ruth Gassner

gassner@hadassah.org.il

Senior Physician - Dr Daniel Azoulay

adaniel@hadassah.org.il

Deputy Head Nurse - Esther Eliahu

esterel@hadassah.org.il

Hospice social worker - Malka Yehezkel

malkay@hadassah.org.il

The Ina and Jack Kay Center is a 14-bed nursing unit for patients with advanced terminal illness.  It opened in September 1986 in Hadassah’s Mount Scopus Hospital , with a home-care service for up to 30 patients added three years later.  Usually full to capacity, the hospice has cared for more than 2,800 people in its 19 years.

Patients.  Most of the patients in Hadassah’s hospice suffer from cancer. They opt for hospice care once they have come to understand that there is no more effective treatment for their illness and choose to be made comfortable for their remaining days.  Their average stay in the facility is two weeks.  Typical difficulties include severe respiratory difficulty,, nausea and vomiting, acute anxiety, depression, disorientation and pain.  Most patients are confined to bed or have a limited degree of mobility.

The hospice is available to patients of all faiths and nationalities, the majority of its inpatients are Jewish ― from veteran Israelis to Russian and Ethiopian newcomers.  Terminally ill Israeli Arabs are more usually cared for at home within their extended families, with hospice staff supporting them with home-care services.

Care.  Emphasis in the hospice is on the total care of the patient and his or her family within warm and optimistic surroundings.  Embracing international hospice philosophy of Care rather than Cure, the priority is to enable dying patients to enjoy the best possible quality of life in the time they have left – pain free and comfortable.  Hospice staff  attend to medical and non-medical needs of their patients, meeting them promptly and confidently, as well as being available to the patients' families at this very difficult time.

The medical needs most often required are additional oxygen, pain relief, relief of nausea, general weakness,  and hydration, should the patients be unable to take fluids.

Non-medical or social needs include understanding, empathy and emotional support for the patient and his family and when attending to their physical needs, it is done promptly, calmly and respectfully.

Home-Care (Crown Fund).  The hospice’s home-care service was introduced in 1989 for terminal patients who choose to stay at home but need the support of a medical/social work team in order to do so it cares for up to 30 patients at a time.  All receive daily visits and/or phone calls from either a hospice physician, nurse or social worker, who are on call to them around the clock.  Together with each patient and family, hospice nurses draw up individual care-programs, usually comprising supportive and analgesic care with psychological and social support. with the knowledge that should being at home prove too difficult for the family to cope with – there is the option of becoming an inpatient at the hospice itself.

Families.  One of the services the hospice staff provides is helping families of the patients.  They are treated with the same attention, professionalism and compassion as the patients themselves.  The social workers help with the bureaucracy of Kuppot Holim, Bituach Leumi etc and on a more personal level support is given to the families’ concerns about the patient.  Another very important service it the support given to children of the dying, helping youngsters both cope with the fact of a terminally ill parent and prepare for life after the loss of that parent. Bereavement follow-up, which can last as long as a year, is integral to hospice policy, especially for families at risk and when children are involved.

Staff.  Hospice director Ruth Gassner heads a staff of 24 specialized nurses and ancillary staff, two physicians, a physiotherapist, and two social workers.  The social workers both coordinate supportive services for patient and family, and provide bereavement counseling.  Appointing a nurse rather than a physician to direct the hospice was a relatively new concept when the hospice opened, but one that has proven highly successful in a unit whose main orientation is nursing and palliative care.

Staff Support. As important as their professional skills, the staff is intensely involved in all the aspects of the patient and those around him – from providing unpaid night-help if necessary - to caring enough to buy a patient a birthday card. This degree of involvement comes at a price.  In a job where death is ever-present, extra support is needed.  A Hadassah social worker and an organizational psychologist consults regularly with hospice and home-care nurses, and provides a range of support, from discussion to psychodrama.

Staff Training.  Nursing students at Hadassah rotate in the hospice as part of their curriculum.  While hospice training is not an independent subject on the Medical School curriculum, sixth-year students are assigned to the hospice for part of their oncology and geriatric training. The Hospice also offers one year training for social work students.

Research.  Active research is carried out in the hospice.  One current example is the effect of analgesic medication on patients with brain tumors and the degree to which such medication is helpful during the final phase before death. We also study the effect of giving oxygen to our patients.

The Building.  The hospice is housed in the renovated home of former Hadassah director-general Dr. Chaim Yassky, and has preserved the atmosphere of a private residence.  Its lounge has a dining area, armchairs and a large fireplace, above which hangs an oil painting of Jerusalem, a gift from the artist, Anna Marcus.  Books line the shelves and a CD-player softly plays music.  There is a television which the patients or their visitors may watch from the terrace and beautiful garden the view stretches down to the Dead Sea.  There is a terrace area as well as grass, and when the weather is pleasant patients can be wheeled outside on their beds to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

The rooms can hold either one, two or three patients and there are two bathrooms.  Each bedroom has a television , and Wi-Fi internet is available 24 hours a day.  Computers may be hired from the hospital

Daily Life.  Meals are taken downstairs at tables in the lounge by those who are strong enough to sit up, often with visiting family or friends, and eaten with silverware from ceramic plates.  There is unrestricted access to the kitchen for patients and their visitors alike, who come in and out to make their own tea or coffee and stack their used cups in the dishwasher.  A large refrigerator is available for the patients’ snacks or favorite meals from home, which can be heated in the hospice’s microwave.  Even in the more hospital-like rooms on the two upper floors, there is no sense of an institution.  Curtains frame windows, pictures hang on walls.  Each bed has a service button and the patients are encourage to call for assistance for anything they might need.  The call will be answered promptly and their needs dealt with efficiently.

In short, every member of staff, uses not only their expertise in this highly sensitive field but also their humanity, to provide the highest quality and comprehensive care available, never forgetting that for each patient and his family, this time is limited and must be honored.