HOSPICE CARE.  IT'S ABOUT LIVING

2604 Old Ocean City Road

Salisbury, MD  21804

 410-742-8732

Fax: 410-548-5669

 

History

Twenty six years ago, a visionary group of local citizens achieved their first milestone in establishing Coastal Hospice when it became a non-profit corporation. These first hospice volunteers had traveled a long way from the moment one of them mentioned to another at a 1978 social gathering, "Do you think we could have a hospice here on the Eastern Shore?"

Inspired by the example of hospice pioneer Cicely Saunders, the volunteers organized a grass roots effort. With the help of the Rollie H. White Fund, they traveled to Montreal to study a model palliative care program and see Cicely Saunders herself. They communicated with other newly forming hospice organization across the country. Information was freely shared. At this birth of the local hospice movement, all involved were dedicated to improving the care of those near the end of life's journey.

The movement attracted highly trained physicians, homemakers, nurses, professors, social workers, attorneys, as well as business and religious leaders. Originally called the Coastal Hospice Society, the group's logo was a ship formed by the letters CHS. With it was a quote from G. K. Chesterton "We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty." Coastal Hospice exists today because community loyalty supported it during the past twenty years.

Cicely Saunders once said to a patient, "You matter because you are you." She recognized that each of us is a gift to our community, which hopefully sustains us in our frailest moments, just as it embraces and nurtures us at birth.

HOSPICE QUESTIONS?  CALL 24 HOURS - 410-548-0891