ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS
Michelle reminded us that we will be having our major fundraiser April 26th. It will be a roast of John Laird. It should be very entertaining.
February 14th will be the speech contest for high school seniors in the area. Save the date! Doug will send around a sign-up sheet to assist.
The Aptos Times will be doing an article on RotaCare. Look for it!
There will be a meeting of the club foundation on Jan 31st at 11:00. That same day there will also be a meting of the community grant committee at 10:00 AM. All are welcome to come.
Wed Feb 20th from 4:00 to 7:00 will be Aptos area Chamber of Commerce Business Showcase. We will have a booth there. You can sign up to help with Doug Deaver.
Margaret Putnam-Pite, LCSW was our speaker today (pictured at right above). She has spent many years in the field of palliative care (which includes hospice) and has now opened a private practice in this field. The goal of her practice is improving quality of life for those affected by a life-threatening illness.
Ms. Putnam-Pite discussed her personal experience at Visiting Nurses Association, the ombudsman and Watsonville Hospital, among other places. She first became a hospice volunteer in 1981. She developed a social work palliative care program at Kaiser and at PAMF. She is now on an inpatient palliative care team at Kaiser in San Jose.
Palliative care is about understanding treatment options and making informed choices about their plan of care. It is more of a consult provided by an interdisciplinary team, usually an MD RN SW and a chaplain. The team stresses a plan of care should be based on one’s own plans and goals. They help decision making and anticipate change in conditions.
Ms. Putnam-Pite differentiated between palliative care and hospice. Hospice is a Medicare benefit that includes the criteria about not seeking aggressive treatment, provision of DME equipment, home health care and pain medications. 24 hour care is the most important piece. The biggest regret that people have is not utilizing hospice care earlier so palliative care brings the program forward to include more than just the end of life care. They started as hospital based, but now palliative care consults are usually in the home.
The goal is to provide support, but the service has some limitations. Some of the limitations are financial, so Ms. Putnam-Pite began her private practice. She can see people in a clinic or in their own homes, accepts Medicare and private pay.
She shared with us several stories about clients she is seeing now. There followed an excellent question and answer session which provided a lot of useful information to our members.
For more information see Putnampite@gmail.com or call 831-334-9279