VIDEO: Safe Home Care

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – The compassionate care of a hospice team can bring comfort to patients and caregivers when they need it most.

Beyond just taking care of patients, hospice professionals make sure they’re following important safety guidelines.

For many families, trusting a complete stranger to care for a loved one is a difficult task, but it gets even harder when the job’s not done properly.

“It had gotten to be unbearable to me. I just appreciate having them so much, there’s no way I could have kept making it by myself,” said care recipient Myron Johnson.

Johnson’s family started receiving hospice home care about 8 months ago.

“Before my wife came to the memory unit here, she was at home with me and I was the primary caregiver. It got to, really, be a burden for me to do everything and keep her meds straight and keep those on the appropriate time,” said Johnson.

Hospice home care is designed to address a patient’s physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs. Kindred Hospice Care Executive Director, Diane Triplett says you can’t forget about safety.

“We have nurses that go out and they get orders from the doctor to draw blood. They do dispose of needles and the bio-hazard sharp container. They do have that in their vehicle locked away in their trunk in case they do have to draw blood, they do have a proper way of disposing of it,” said Triplett.

Triplett says if the nurses don’t properly discard home care items it could mean big consequences for not only patients but anyone in contact with potential hazardous items.

“They will bring it here, tape it up and put it in our bio-hazard container. We have a bio-hazard truck that comes by and pick it up so that it would not get into the land fill and possible stick people with it and causing injuries,” said Triplett.

Johnson says, for any family, having a nurse who practices safety is just as important as the care they are administering.

“They keep me updated constantly and then when she changes medicines, if she has to change the meds they’re always properly disposed of. I just know that she is well taken care of and that’s the main thing to me,” said Johnson.

“Our job is to make sure that we are protecting our patient and protecting us also while we are out in the field. Also, to make sure that we have that trust and rapport with the family and they see that we are doing it properly,” said Triplett.

You can get more valuable information and resources to help seniors at WCBI’s “Healthy Living for Seniors Expo.”

That event is next Wednesday, September 27, at Leigh mall in Columbus from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.