Pediatric End-of-life Care for Kids

$100,000 Gift Supports Home Medical Care for Sick Children

Coastal Kids Home Care announced a $100,000 grant from the Hospice Giving Foundation. Since its inception in 1997, Hospice Giving Foundation has granted over $22 million dollars to local programs dedicated to strengthening and improving palliative, hospice, and other end-of-life care in our community.

“People expect to care for adults with life-threatening or terminal illnesses.” Says Siobhan Greene, Executive Director of the Hospice Giving Foundation, “But when a child has a terminal diagnosis, that’s too hard, too painful to imagine. Still, at the commonsense level, pediatric end-of-life care is something in which we must invest.”

Coastal Kids Home Care is the only organization along California’s Central Coast providing palliative and end-of-life care for children diagnosed with life-threatening and terminal illnesses. The agency ensures children have the in-home medical care, therapies, and emotional support they need to live with their illnesses, while also supporting families through the practical challenges of caregiving and complex emotions of illness and loss.

“The generosity of the Hospice Caring Foundation makes it possible for Coastal Kids to provide end-of-life care for kids,” said Lewis Cantor, Chairman of the Board and pediatrician. “Without their support, children in our community would be spending their last days in hospital rooms instead of at home, where they most want to be.”

Founded in 2005, Coastal Kids Home Care is the leading provider of professional pediatric home care services delivering more than 42,000 home visits to 6,400 medically fragile infants and children regardless of the ability to pay. Coastal Kids’ programs are available to any child, newborn through age 21, living with a medical need that can be met with nursing and therapy visits in Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey and Santa Clara Counties. Administered by a team of licensed and registered nurses, therapists, and social workers, programs offer age-appropriate medical care for children, and much-needed emotional, psychosocial, and educational support for their families.

For more information visit: www.coastalkidshomecare.org or Call: 1.800.214 (KIDZ) 5439. Email: coastalkidshomecare@gmail.com