To Find a Home for A Navy Veteran

Our stories about meaningful experiences are written as they unfold. Therefore, most stories are in the present tense. Some of the patients in these stories are no longer with us. They, and their families, gave us permission to share their experience with you. For those who have since passed, we share these in their memories with deep appreciation for what they have taught us about life and living.

One afternoon, our hospice, Hospice Care Plus, was called to see if we could help a young Navy veteran, Mr. Jones (name changed), who was essentially homeless.

He had been living in a home with some family members, but difficult family dynamics led to it being a very unsafe environment for him, especially since he was coping with an end-stage disease.

One of our nurses was sent to evaluate Mr. Jones, and found that he was appropriate for hospice care. The challenge, though, was where we would care for him. He had no home.

After making several calls, it was clear there was no way to find an immediate home situation for the veteran patient. The Hospice Care Plus team met and made a suggestion: what if we housed him at our Compassionate Care Center in Richmond, so at least he could live in peace and comfort while we continued trying to find a safe and welcome living situation for him.

It was a big decision. We are reimbursed about $600 per day for patients who need inpatient care at our Center, as determined by Medicare guidelines. Unfortunately, though, it looked as if Mr. Jones might not meet those Medicare guidelines for inpatient care—just for hospice home care. In order to let him stay at the Center, then, we’d have to be prepared to accept the home care reimbursement rate of $130 per day instead of the inpatient reimbursement of $600 per day. If he stayed two weeks, and if he never met those inpatient Medicare guidelines, we stood to lose about $6,580. If he stayed more than two weeks, it could add up to an enormous amount of lost funds.

But, we all felt there wasn’t a choice, really. We had a bed, and a dying veteran needed a home. How could we not invite him to stay? If anyone deserves compassion and dignity at the end of life, it’s our veterans.

He came to the Center and was given a room of his own. When he was well enough to eat, our dietary staff loved to cook for him and bring him meals. Our We Honor Veterans program presented him with a framed certificate, thanking him for his service.

He also got to enjoy some of the things that meant a lot to him throughout his life. An avid guitarist, Mr. Jones loved rock music. His favorite times in life were spent going to various music venues, watching bands he loved, and joining them on stage to jam along with them.

Since he couldn’t do that anymore, he did the next best thing—he brought his guitar with him to our Center.

“I think it helped him remember really happy times of playing with his favorite bands,” says Diana Bond, the social worker at the Compassionate Care Center. “You could always tell when he was feeling well, because that’s when he’d pick up the guitar and strum for a while.”

Diana worked to find Mr. Jones permanent placement at a VA facility in Kentucky, but he deteriorated so quickly that it wasn’t possible to transfer him anywhere else. So, the Center was his home until the end. He died peacefully a few weeks after coming to us for a safe, caring home.

Mr. Jones never said to us, “My bucket-list wish is to live out my last days in a safe place, under a roof, in a warm bed, with homemade food and loving people around me—not on the streets.” He didn’t have to. It was unexpressed but clear as a bell. Who doesn’t want that? It’s incredibly tragic that such a basic human need became a bucket-list wish for him. But it did.

We’re not sure how we’ll recover the losses from that stay, but we still feel we did what we had to do. Twenty-five percent of dying Americans are veterans. They gave us their all. They deserve no less from us.

How can you honor life during National Hospice & Palliative Care Month? Visit the #WeHonorLife campaign page to learn about all the ways you can help, from volunteering and shopping to helping us increase access to specialized care for the seriously ill and their families. Questions? Contact us at hospice@hospicecp.org or 859-986-1500 or visit our website.