Donations to Hospice Fund Encouraged by Program Co-Founder
Consider a Planned Gift to the Adena Health Foundation
After six decades practicing internal medicine, Dr. John Seidensticker is a throwback to a time in which patients welcomed physicians into their homes and, figuratively, into their families. For Dr. Seidensticker, that hasn’t changed.
“I still enjoy making house calls and going all around south central Ohio, wherever we have patients,” he said. “It’s what I call low-tech medicine—just seeing the patients, seeing the family, talking with them and helping them along.”
Sometimes, helping them along means seeing patients and their families through some of the most physically, emotionally and spiritually difficult times in their lives, navigating terminal illness. That understanding in 1984 led Dr. Seidensticker and his friend and colleague Dr. Paul MacCarter to found Adena Health System’s hospice program.
“Back then, hospice was a fairly new concept,” he recalled. “We just felt the concept made a lot of sense to take care of people in the process of dying and to take care of their families. There was really no insurance for it, there was no Medicare for it. It was all done by donations and word of mouth.”
While that financial landscape for hospice has changed a bit, Dr. Seidensticker still encourages the program as a target for donations through the Adena Health Foundation as the Health System continues to explore options for expanding services for hospice patients and for those at home who need a brief respite from caring for their loved one. A year ago, he added his own contribution through an IRA charitable distribution.
The difference that kind of support can make for a patient and family facing an end-of-life situation is immeasurable. Dr. John Gabis, Adena’s Medical Director of Community Partnerships, has seen that firsthand, having referred patients to hospice for the past 30 years.
“The experiences for the patients have been exceptional,” Dr. Gabis said.
To learn more about the variety of charitable giving opportunities with the Adena Health Foundation, contact Beau Bowman at (740) 779-8718 or hbowman2@adena.org.
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