Kaweah Health Hospice and Visalia Breakfast Lions provide patients with holiday meals

To help brighten the Thanksgiving holiday for family members who have a loved one receiving hospice care, Kaweah Health Hospice today delivered fresh turkeys and fixings to 102 patients.

The meals, which have been provided to Kaweah Health Hospice patients for more than 10 years, were provided to patients as a result of a partnership between Kaweah Health Hospice and the Visalia Breakfast Lions Club, which provided the fresh turkeys. Because of the overwhelming generosity, some additional meals were provided to a few Home Health and Rural Health families. Kaweah Health Hospice staff, along with staff members from the Rural Health Clinics, Subacute, Urgent Cares, Home Health, the Kaweah Health Executive Team and the Kaweah Health Hospice Foundation Board, contributed all of the “fixings” to go with the turkey. Additionally, members of Kaweah Health’s NPC Post-Acute team volunteered their time to bag up fixings for Kaweah Health Hospice staff members.

“This is so our families don’t have to deal with more than they are dealing with,” said Tiffany Bullock, Director of Kaweah Health Home Health & Hospice.

Kaweah Health Hospice, a division of Kaweah Health, is a not-for-profit hospice that has been providing end-of-life services for adults and children in Tulare and Kings counties for over 35 years. The organization works to relieve pain and suffering at the end of life, as well as provide emotional support and spiritual counseling. Patients and their families are offered a variety of services via a team approach. The team consists of a physician of choice, a nurse, a hospice aide, a chaplain, a social worker and bereavement counseling. The team is designed to assist families in navigating through this final chapter of life.

Cydney Alvarado, a Registered Nurse, for Kaweah Health Hospice was grateful for the opportunity to help her patients and their families outside of the care she already provides. “My patients aren’t just patients to me,” she said. “They become part of our family, so to be able to give them such an awesome gift is so meaningful to me.”

Kaweah Health is a publicly-owned community healthcare organization that provides comprehensive health services to the greater Visalia region and Tulare County. With more than 5,000 employees and 700 medical staff, Kaweah Health is committed to meeting the community’s health needs through state-of-the-art medicine, high-quality preventive services and specialized health centers and clinics. For more information, visit www.kaweahhealth.org or follow Kaweah Health on Twitter and Facebook.