Hospice and Palliative Care Month

WHEREAS, hospice and palliative care empower people to live as fully as possible, surrounded by family and loved ones, despite serious and life-limiting illnesses; and

WHEREAS, hospice and palliative care bring patients and family caregivers the highest-quality care delivered by an interdisciplinary team of skilled professionals that includes physicians, nurses, social workers, therapists, counselors, health aides, spiritual care providers and other who make the wishes of each patient and family a priority; and

WHEREAS, through pain management and symptom control, caregiver training and assistance and emotional and spiritual support, hospice and palliative care allow patients to live fully up until the final moments, surrounded and supported by the faces of loved ones, friends and committed caregivers; and

WHEREAS, every year more than 1.65 million Americans living with life-limiting illness, and their-families, receive care from the nation’s hospice programs in communities throughout the United States; and

WHEREAS, more than 450,000 trained volunteers contribute 21 million hours of service to a hospice program annually:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert Bentley, Governor of Alabama, do hereby proclaim the month of November 2014, as

Hospice and Palliative Care Month

in the state of Alabama.