Our Big Plans

Judith Karman Hospice Executive Director Mary Lee Warren hadn’t been in the hospice business very long when she began to formulate her dream for the agency.
           “The first hospice house I ever visited was back in 1986 when I was a brand new hospice director,” Warren says. “I went to Denver for my first national meeting and two wonderful things happened. First, I got to hear Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and second, I visited St. John’s Hospice in Denver. That hospice house was the most peaceful, happy place. The patients were out strolling around and mingling with each other.
            “There was a walled garden and a little rabbit that lived there. There was a beautiful chapel. They had a hospice dog. At that time, people were reluctant to touch patients with AIDS, but that dog didn’t care what you had. That dog would jump up in those beds with those patients and give them the affection that they needed. It gave me the idea of the atmosphere that a hospice house should have.”
            It also gave her the idea of building a hospice house for Stillwater, an idea that 19 years later, is one step closer to reality.
            In early June, Judith Karman Hospice purchased 14.8 acres of land near the corner of McElroy and Jardot to build its own hospice house.
            “We have finalized the sale and registered the deed, so we are officially the owners,” Warren says. “It is a beautiful piece of land in a quiet serene setting.”
            The land was purchased with funds generated by Karman Korner Resale Shop.
            “Our Karman Korner volunteers have been running that thrift shop for 10 years and we have been socking money away,” Warren says. “They purchased that land. They have made that a reality for us.”
            “And they’re going to continue to help fund this hospice house because it’s going to be expensive to run.”
            Initial construction costs are estimated at $3-4 million for the 12-bed facility. No timetable has been set for the start of construction.
            The facility will have room not only for in-patient services but for community support groups and activities. It will also house the agency’s administrative offices.

            “Each room will be private with room for a family to come in and spend the night if they need to,” Warren says. “There will be laundry facilities and shower facilities and kitchen and living areas for the families to use. This is going to be a hospice home—it’s not going to be institutional at all.
            “We want the whole focus of this building to be on making a patient and family’s last days together just as serene and comfortable as they can be.”
            The hospice house will serve patients who are not able to stay in their own homes.
            “There are times when we’ll have a patient whose family is not capable of taking care of them, who doesn’t have a real home to stay in or whose caregiver starts out taking care of them and then, for some reason, often health reasons, isn’t able to continue,” Warren says. “There are also times when a patient who is in the home needs pretty intensive nursing care. That person would be a candidate for the hospice house too.”
            The addition of a hospice house in Stillwater is important because it will offer patients more choices for their health care. Nationwide there are approximately 300 hospice houses. There are none yet in Oklahoma.
            “Hospitals are wonderful places for getting well,” Warren says. “Hospitals are terrible places to die. They are geared toward cure. This will be a facility that is geared totally toward comfort and end-of-life care.
            “This is not going to be a facility where breakfast is at seven and lunch is at noon and dinner is at five and baths are given at 10. This place will be driven strictly by the patients’ needs and wants. Breakfast will be served when that patient wakes up and wants it. It will be just like that patient’s in their own home.”
            Volunteers will play a big role in everything from landscaping the facility to helping with day-to-day operations. They will be needed to help support patients and families, do laundry, answer phones and numerous other small but crucial tasks.
            But the most crucial element is money. Warren and the Judith Karman Hospice staff will work to secure funding for the building through grants and private donations. She’s counting on community support to help as well.
            “This hospice house is going to impact this entire community,” she says. “Over the years, we’ve taken care of thousands of people. This hospice house is going to be an extension of what we’ve always done and that is help patients through the hardest time they’ll ever go through and help their families deal with loss and grief.
            “We’re going to still continue to give the very best kind of end-of-life care you can get, in the patient’s own home, in our hospice house or in a nursing home. Wherever the patient lives, we’ll go there. That won’t change. And another thing that won’t change is that we still do not bill our patients for hospice care.”