Hospices Reaching Out to the Hispanic Community

This article from The Kansas City Star, discusses how one local hospice formed an entire Spanish-speaking care team to assist in its outreach to the Hispanic community. In the case described in the article, this team included a nurse, personal aide, and a chaplain.

In the excerpt below, the hospice's chaplain, Michael Arciga, gives his thoughts on why Hispanics underuse hospice care.

"There are a couple of reasons that Hispanics might not seek out hospice care, he said.

First, there is a misconception about hospice among immigrants from Latin American countries. The Spanish word for hospice refers to a place, such as an asylum or an orphanage, not a service that brings health-care aides and social workers to a patient’s home or hospital bedside.

“When they hear ‘hospice,’ they think we’ll take their loved one somewhere and take the family out of it,” Arciga said. “I try to provide education that we go where the patient is. If they’re in the home, great. We just support you in taking care of your loved one.”
The cultural tendency to take care of needs inside the family, rather than seeking outside assistance, also can hamper hospice access in the Hispanic community.

“Within the Latino community, as is true in the African-American community, taking care of your own (is important),” Arciga said. “There is a certain level of distrust with people coming in because there’s a fear of what they are going to do. You have to establish that level of trust first, then they will allow you to provide care to their loved ones.”