Welcome to Barton County area Caring Communities Project Council web site.

We are pleased to have your visit.  Our Council was formed in February 2000, after two of us from Central Kansas Medical Center (CKMC) attended a training and orientation session on the LIFEProject.  We have been meeting monthly to plan our work.

The following people serve on the Project Council:

Primary Contact: Donita Wolf - Golden Belt Home Health & Hospice, Phone: (620) 786-6597, Email: donitawolf@chi-midwest.org

Lily Akings – Barton County Health Department

Jane Bemis – Hospice Volunteer

Cindy Rugan - Golden Belt Home Health & Hospice

Rev. John Grummon – CKMC and Hospice Chaplain

Kim Tutak - Association for Continuing Education (ACE)

Donna Krug – Barton County Extension Service

Sister Jean Marie Lehtinen – CKMC Director of Mission Effectiveness

Sherrie Siefers – Golden Belt Home Health and Hospice

Leisa Welsch – CKMC Volunteer Manager

Teddy Williamson – Clara Barton Hospital

 

Our members are from Great Bend, Larned, Hoisington, Russell and Ellinwood.  Our geographic area covers all of Barton and Pawnee Counties and Russell in Russell County.

If you are a citizen within this geographic area and you have end-of-life questions, concerns or issues, we want to hear from you.  Contact the following Council members:

Great Bend – Donita Wolf - (620) 786-6597 - donitawolf@chi-midwest.org

Ellinwood – Sherrie Siefers -  (620) 786-6597 – Sherriesiefers@chi-midwest.org

Hoisington – Teddy Williamson – (620) 653-2114 - twilliam@haysmed.com

We offer presentations to civic, community, and churches groups on the following topics: 

Advance Directives

Advance Health Care Planning

End-of- life issues and concerns

Public Policy

Palliative Care

Hospice

Spiritual Considerations for End-of-life

To contact a speaker, please call Kelly Alderson at (620) 786-6167 or kellyalderson@chi-midwest.org

During the spring of 2000, we surveyed citizens concerning their knowledge and opinions of end-of-life issues and concerns. 

A few interesting statistics:

62% of the participants have talked to a loved on about their wishes should they become terminally ill.  However, 74% of the participants have not completed advance directives for themselves.

The four most important end-of-life issues were:

A lesser concern for the participants was dying at home.

When asked about public policy issues:

96%  of the participants felt that health care professionals should honor the wishes of a patient if a written advance directive was prepared in another state.  State regulations???

72%  of the participants felt that families should not be able to nullify or revoke the written advance directive or a person who has lost the ability to make his or her own decisions (about 20% did not know).

69%  of the participants felt that healthcare professional should honor the wishes of a patient when those wished are know, even if the patient does not have a formal, written advance directive (17% did not know).

94%  of the participants believe that the amount of pain medication a doctor can prescribe to a dying patient should not be limited because of our concern about drug abuse.

91% of the participants believe that the amount of pain medication doctor can prescribe to a dying patient should not be limited because of the possibility the life will end faster (5% did not know).

39%  of the participants would be willing to pay more for their insurance to make sure that hospice services would be available to all dying people (45% did not know).

There is a lot of work to be done in the coming year to educate citizens about end-of-life issues.  After our educational endeavors, we hope to re-do the survey to see improvements in attitudes.  There is more interest in this topic since the airing of the On Our Own Terms series on PBS in September.

Groups can view the series by calling Lindsey Aytes for more information (620) 786-6167 or by email at lindseyaytes@chi-midwest.org.

 

Thanks and congratulations to Cindy Rugan, Carolyn Mikesell, Deb Krier, Jan Watkins, Jamie Guesnier, and Jan Koch