“We are everything that we can do, to help not only you die peacefully but to live until you die.” – Dame Cicely Saunders
Dame Cicely Saunders in 1967 in St. Christopher’s Hospice in London first applied the term “hospice” to specialized care for terminally ill and dying patients. Today, hospice care humane and compassionate care for people in the last phases of incurable disease so that they live as fully and comfortably as possible in the time they have left.
Hospice is a philosophy of care. The Utah hospice care philosophy or point of view accepts death as the last phase of life, and the inevitable end of the long-term illness. The goal of Utah hospice is the patient to an alert, pain-free life to enjoy and manage other symptoms so that their last days may be spent with dignity and quality, surrounded by loved ones. Utah Hospice care affirms life and neither accelerated or postponed death.
Utah Hospice care treats the person and not the disease, but focuses on the quality rather than length of life. It provides family-centered care and includes the patient and the family in decision making. Care is provided for the patient and family 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Utah hospice care can be given in the patient’s home, a hospital, nursing home, hospice or private institution. Most hospice care in the United States has been in the house with a family member or members, as the main hands-on caregiver.
Utah hospice is for people who no longer benefit from cancer or other diseases and stressful treatments expected to live six months or less are suitable. Hospice palliative care offers people what treatment for relief of cancer or other disease-related symptoms but not cure the disease, whose main purpose is to improve the quality of life. You choose, your family and your doctor together when to start hospice Utah.
One of the main hospice is that it is often not started soon enough. Sometimes the doctor, patient, or family member will resist hospice because he or she feels it sends a message of no hope for recovery. That is not true if the patient is better or the disease in remission, he or she can be taken out of the hospice program and go into the active treatment of cancer. The patient can re-initiate Utah hospice care at a later date if necessary.
The hope that hospice brings is the hope of a life, make the most of each day during the last stages of advanced illness.


Utah hospice care for cancer patients in terminal stage of their illness. The author Art Gib is a freelance writer.