Caring Community - Latino Resources

Hispanic Attitudes/Beliefs Relevant to Care and Caring at the End of Life

Sun, 5 Sep 2004 17:59:00 -0700

The Hispanic community of the United States represents peoples from over 17 Spanish-speaking countries. There are Hispanic families that have been in the United States for generations, while others are newly arrived immigrants. Regardless of the country of origin, or how long a family has been in the United States though, there are culturally-based attitudes and behaviors that unite the Hispanic community. These attitudes and beliefs exhibit themselves under many circumstances, but especially at the end of life.

Memorial Hospice

Sat, 3 Jan 2009 11:26:33 -0800

Rooted in community, Memorial Hospice has been providing quality, compassionate hospice care and grief services to individuals and families facing life-threatening illness or the death of a loved one since 1997. Memorial Hospice and our sister program, Hospice of Petaluma, are a service of the St. Joseph Health System, a Ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.

Patients and families receive interdisciplinary patient care with individualized attention to nursing, psychosocial, spiritual and practical needs that may arise at the end of life. Memorial Hospice is proud of serving the Spanish-speaking community with our Latino Grief Services program and bi-lingual patient care staff. Hospice services are provided by professional staff and specially trained caregiver and grief support volunteers. Volunteer trainings are held in the spring and fall with both daytime and evening classes.

Multicultural Palliative Care Guidelines (Hispanic)

Sun, 5 Sep 2004 17:59:46 -0700

These guidelines prepared by the Palliative Care Council of South Australia give an overview of cultural issues when serving Latinos, Vietnamese, and people of Muslim faith. Guidelines consider religion, place of treatment, communication of diagnosis/prognosis, role of family/relative/friends, role of health professionals/volunteers, attitudes to pain relief and euthanasia, taboo words, handling of the body, burial and other issues.

National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:06:28 -0800

The mission of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) is to promote minority health and to lead, coordinate, support, and assess the National Institutes on Health effort to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities. In this effort NCMHD will conduct and support basic, clinical, social, and behavioral research, promote research infrastructure and training, foster emerging programs, disseminate information, and reach out to minority and other health disparity communities. The NCMHD envisions an America in which all populations will have an equal opportunity to live long, healthy and productive lives. The NIH conduit for grantgiving in the arena of health disparity and related training and advocacy.

Reluctant Realism - Latino Perspective on End of Life Issues

Thu, 3 Nov 2005 10:00:49 -0800

Reluctant Realism
by Margaret R. McLean and Margaret A. Graham published in Issues in Ethics, Winter, 2003 Volume 14, Number 1, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University pp. 7-9.

To assist in the goal of improving the Latino health care experience in the San Jose community, 66 adults agreed to participate in a series of three focus group sessions that explored their attitudes and concerns regarding end-of-life care. This article presents their views of death and dying, their interactions with the health care system, and their concerns about discussing these issues with their families.

Thinking Ahead: My Way, My Choice, My Life at the End

Mon, 5 Jan 2009 12:49:55 -0800

This advance care planning workbook was designed by and for people with developmental disabilities to enable them to do their own advance care planning. A DVD video is also available and may be previewed online. This project was created by the California Coalition for Compassionate Care, the Board Resource Center and Mark Starford who has extensive experience and expertise in adapting complex information for persons with developmental disabilities. This is also a great resource to use when working with the frail elderly, people with low reading comprehension or anytime simplification of complex advance health care planning issues would be helpful. It is also available in Spanish and Chinese.