Margaret was the keynote speaker at the Growing Through Loss Conference in Las Cruces on March 2nd. Her topic was the history of Mesilla Valley Hospice where she worked for about twenty years, most of that as the Executive Director.
When Margaret first started working with the organization in the early '80s it was mostly supported by the hard work of a few volunteers based in a store-front office to provide in-home end-of-life care. Margaret gradually built the staff, the patient census and the support of the community to create a first-class hospice that presently serves about a hundred patients at a time.
Most people still are able to receive the needed support to stay at home, but there is also a residential facility, La Posada, which can provide residential care for up to 28 patients and their families. No one is turned away from hospice services because of an inability to pay, thanks in a large part to Margaret's early effort to convince the State of New Mexico to make indigent care funds available to hospice and other non-profit social service and health care organizations throughout the state.
2 comments:
What a great service Margaret's work achieves! It is needed, real, and edifying.
Thanks for that recognition, Bill.
I first met Margaret forty years ago when she was fresh out of NYU and employed as a caseworker in Brooklyn. If someone then had predicted she would have a career with great professional accomplishments, I would not have been at all surprised.
I like the photo I got of her at the conference, largely because it is a nice reminder of many similar events over the years.
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