Hospice celebrates 20th birthday

     By Damon Hodge
     View staff writer
      Twenty-one years after Nathan Adelson's death, Irwin Molasky's reverence for him has yet to wane.
      Molasky met Nathan Adelson in the early '50s through the latter's son, Merv. Business partners, Molasky and Merv Adelson opened Sunrise Hospital on Dec. 15, 1958, increasing the 60-bed facility to more than 100 beds but failing to see a corresponding increase in business.
      So the duo brought in Merv's father, Nathan, plugging him in as administrator of the struggling Maryland Parkway hospital since he'd successfully run large operations before. As the hospital's fortunes rose, Nathan Adelson's health declined. Cancer ravaged him and he died in 1977.
      "He was a dignified man who had an undignified death," Molasky said.
      Merv Adelson and Molasky had heard of hospice care, a concept popular in Britain that made death more palatable for the terminally ill and their families. The duo used the concept to found Nathan Adelson Hospice. Incorporated Nov. 22, 1978, the nonprofit hospice cared for seven patients its first year.
      Twenty years and 20,000 patients later, the 4141 S. Swenson St. facility is still working to ensure the terminally ill die with dignity.
      Last year, 986 patients received care, with thousands of their family members and friends using the hospice's extensive support network which includes an 11th-hour component, counseling, bereavement services and more.
      Molasky said Nathan Adelson would be proud.
      "Everyone loved him," Molasky said of Nathan Adelson, a philanthropist and businessman who recruited some of the nation's best doctors, "much as coaches recruit football players" and became known as "Mr. Medicine" for resurrecting Sunrise hospital. "Merv and I thought he deserved better than to spend his dying days wracked with pain."
      Adelson Hospice was the nation's third hospice. Opened inside a medical building, the hospice was staffed by a few nurses and volunteers. Patients weren't treated as much medically, Molasky said, as they were emotionally, spiritually and socially.
      In 1983, a 20-bed facility was built near UNLV on Swenson Street, making Adelson Hospice the nation's third inpatient program. Still the city's only nonprofit hospice, Adelson Hospice has stretched its services to Pahrump, Goodsprings and Sandy Valley.
      "Since 1978, our clinical services and support have allowed thousands of patients to continue to spend their remaining time with dignity," said hospice CEO Peter Barcus, who is directing his third hospice in a 12-year career beginning in North Carolina and sparked by his father's death to pancreatic cancer in Iowa. "I was tremendously impressed with how the hospice cared for my father and the amazing support it gave to my mother and my family. At Nathan Adelson, we strive to render the best care."
      Molasky said Nathan Adelson could have used such care.
      The hospice movement began in the '60s but failed to gain steam early, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Hospice Association of America. Molasky said Americans were averse to dealing with death because, "Nobody had taught us how to face it."
      Adelson Hospice began by providing in-home care via visiting nurses and counselors. Since then, the average stay of a patient has decreased almost six-fold, from six months to one month, and sometimes as short as two weeks, said Judith Hantin, the hospice's director of development.
      Molasky said Adelson Hospice became of model for the country because it extended care to grieving families and started programs like Camp Mariposa, a one-day counseling camp for survivors at Mount Charleston.
      Other unique offerings implemented in the last 20 years include the "Tuck In" program in which volunteers help get patients needed supplies and services, the Home Alone component which provides additional support for patients without caregivers or family and the 11th Hour program, offering added support to patients nearing death and to their families. Adelson Hospice has the city's only in-house hospice pharmacy.
      Since fees are based on a sliding scale to accommodate families with limited resources, Barcus said the Medicare-certified hospice has never turned away patients.
      In two decades, Adelson Hospice has provided more than $600,000 in charity care and played host to children's baptisms and two weddings -- one for a patient who married a long-time companion and another for a patient who re-married an ex-lover. Staff also worked to fulfill the wish of a terminally ill girl who wanted to ride a horse before she died.
      "Things like that really make a difference in the lives of our patients and their families," Barcus said. "If Mr. Adelson were here today, he'd be smiling.