A Home-like Environment

There is beauty all around. Each patient room is spacious with French doors leading to a private lanai and lots of natural light. There are photographs of family on the dresser, comfortable overstuffed chairs in cozy corners and pretty linens on the beds.

Living rooms offer a place for patients and families to enjoy music, TV and conversation. Gardens provide a simple pleasure and sanctuary from a hectic world.

Tidewell's Hospice Houses also offer a variety of care options. Residential care is provided at houses in Englewood and Arcadia for those at the end of life who have no caregiver. Tidewell's other houses (Sarasota, Bradenton, Ellenton, Venice and Port Charlotte) are licensed as inpatient facilities, allowing for the skilled nursing care of patients whose needs previously could only be met in a hospital. Patients in need of continuous symptom control can be admitted to hospice house for around-the-clock care while their condition is stabilized. When those symptoms are brought under control and the patient and their family members feel comfortable making the transition, they can return to where most patients really want to be - their own home.

There are other facets to hospice house, as well. As hands-on facilities with staff specializing in end-of-life care, they serve as a bridge between the hospital and the patient's own home. Family members can become comfortable performing the skills needed to care for their loved one at home. Hospice house can be a place of temporary placement for the control of distressing symptoms or it can be a place where patients come while their caregivers get a well-earned, much-needed period of respite. Each situation is assessed individually to determine the appropriate level of care.

With staff and volunteers who have chosen palliative care as their life's work, and who understand that those things that enriched our patients' lives prior to their diagnoses continue to enrich them today, Hospice house is a place that enables patients to live and accept life's end in peace and dignity.

Each hospice house also has an adjacent staff center to help meet the burgeoning need for end-of-life care in our service area. This allows Tidewell to provide cost-effective, 24-hour-a-day coverage for home patients while ensuring continuity of care for hospice house residents.

Each staff center includes a multi-purpose meeting room with ample space to host our valued volunteers and a wide variety of bereavement support groups that are free and open to the public.

But hospice is much more than its buildings: it is a philosophy of caring that is built on the cornerstone of patient choice.