Hospice Staff Given Recognition in Tucson

The Arizona Daily Star reports on a local award, Ben's Bells, started to honor people who make the Tucson community a better place to live. Last week the employees of Casa de la Luz Hospice received the "belling" after a dying man asked his family to honor the hospice staff. The Ben's Bells project began after the death of Ben Maré Packard in 2003, who was almost three years old. The boy's family hopes the project will remind people to be kind, to help ease one another's pain.

The recognition was a huge accolade for the staff, said Dasa Schmidt, the marketing director for Casa de la Luz.

"It was such an honor and we are so grateful for the recognition and the support," she said.

About 15 people were there for the ceremony, she said, everyone from the social worker to the spiritual counselor who had helped the family with Daniel Arvayo's transition.

"They brought his picture, so it almost felt like he was present," Schmidt said.

The hospice is in its 10th year and is locally owned and operated, she said. Most of its patients remain in their homes, but the hospice also has an inpatient unit and a residential home.

In all of its services, she said, the hospice follows a model of care that treats the whole patient, and family members, too. For example, the facility has a bereavement-services program that cares for families for a year after their loved one's passing.

"We just try to make sure they can process their grief properly and with lots of love and support," Schmidt said.

She also praised the Arvayos.

"We just feel so honored to be recognized by Ben's Bells and Del and it was a privilege to take care of Mr. Arvayo and his family. They're very special, as is every single person we have the opportunity to be with."