Hospice & Palliative Care Council of Vermont Creates Partnership with Tanzania

HPCCV is celebrating the beginning of an ambitious effort to directly address the health and HIV crises in Africa by forming a partnership with a rural palliative care program in Iambi, Tanzania through the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa (FHSSA).

“Though we are a small state with a small budget, Vermont hospices have big hearts, and we are donating 10% of our annual budget to help this program in Tanzania. We complain about the cost of gasoline and the impact on home visits, but in Iambi they are doing home visits on foot, bicycling for hours, and using the weekly bus to take them to distant villages,” said HPCCV Director, Virginia Fry.

Funds have been raised through a Silent Auction and donation jar at the recent Annual Conference at Lake Morey in Fairlee, Vermont, and the sale of garden bulbs. Future efforts may include a Winter Ball featuring African dance music, and a trip to Tanzania in February by Middlebury hospice worker and project spearhead, David White, of Hospice Volunteer Services, to extend personal contacts and assess ways we can help.

“The donation of a few thousand dollars can support the work of a nurse for a year, or medicine for an entire village-- and no gift is too small to make a big impact,” says David White and National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization President and CEO, Don Schumacher. NHPCO co-sponsors the African effort, which has extended to over 60 programs in 10 countries since 1999.

If you wish to help, you can send a check made out to FSSHA and mail it to HPCCV at 10 Main St., Montpelier, VT 05602. You can also go on the http://www.NHPCO.org website and explore the linked FSHHA information. Vermont hospice workers will hear more about this exciting project to make a frightening world safer at the next HPCCV Annual Conference on Thursday, June 12, 2008, again at Lake Morey.