It is kind of surprising when a lot of the families who enroll their ill loved ones with Centerlife Care comment on how new and innovative our program seems to them. We’ve had a lot of comments from “how is your specialist able to spend so much time with our patients” to “how do your specialist handle so many patients?”
It would be a simple matter of just saying it’s all in time management but it is more than that. What we’ve done is develop a community, where each member is developed to have the highest of regards to the care and treatment of all loved ones.
“But this is the same thing with hospitals!” one may answer and we’re not going to contradict such an answer. But in Centerlife Care’s care and treatment program, we actively seek the participation of the family of the ill loved one.
This is one of the basis of the core philosophy of our care and treatment. If we examine the advantages of this philosophy, its first real advantage can be seen in the diagnosis. Advanced lab test could give a clue or completely determine the disease of an ill loved one, but subtle clues as to how they could have contracted the disease could be elicited from the family. The normal or usual behavior and routine of the ill loved one, or any deviation from such routines and behavior are also good baseline information in starting care and treatment. We value such information from the families because such kind of knowledge can only come from somebody who has lived with somebody intimately for a significant length of time.
The second advantage comes in the care or treatment of the ill loved one. Call it”quirks”, but little things such as modesty or being oversensitive could figure out as very important in the care and treatment of an ill loved one. We believe that we should treat our ill loved ones with the dignity they deserve and be as gentle and kind in handling them. And when families inform us of these “quirks”, we know we can start the process of knowing our patients better and taking care of them better.
Because among the Centerlife Care staff, we believe that if we could even be partly treated like a member of the family, the care we provide would significantly be better that if we were to be treated as just another professional doing their job. If our patients treat us like family they are open to our ministrations – however painful it be because they know their “loved ones” are just after their best treatment and care.
Perhaps the most touching in this aspect of being accepted as part of the family comes when it is time for an ill loved one to rest – whether to nap or sleep or find eternal repose. If we can make our ill loved ones feel that they are not alone when they rest, then we’ve started on the kind of care and treatment we would like every ailing person to have – one which is kind, concerned and intimate.