Senate Resolution No. 2655

BY: Senator STAVISKY

MEMORIALIZING Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim
November 2024, as Hospice and Palliative Care
Awareness Month in the State of New York

WHEREAS, New York State places the highest priority on the health
and well-being of all its citizens; and

WHEREAS, Honoring patient preferences is a critical element in
providing quality end-of-life care; and

WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to memorialize
Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim November 2024, as Hospice and
Palliative Care Awareness Month in the State of New York, in conjunction
with the observance of National Hospice and Palliative Care Awareness
Month; and

WHEREAS, For more than 40 years, hospice has given comfort and
provided dignity to millions of people, allowing them to spend their
final days and months at home, surrounded by the people important to
them; and

WHEREAS, The hospice model is built on an interdisciplinary, team
approach to treatment and support, including expert medical care,
quality symptom control, and comprehensive pain management as a
foundation of care; and

WHEREAS, Beyond providing clinical treatment, hospice attends to the
patient's emotional, spiritual and social needs, caregiver training, and
bereavement support; and

WHEREAS, As hospice organizations are some of the best providers of
community-based palliative care helping to improve the quality of
end-of-life life through pain and symptom control and other services;
and

WHEREAS, In an increasingly fragmented and broken health care
system, hospice is one of the few sectors that demonstrates how health
care can and should work at its best for the people it serves; and

WHEREAS, 1.72 million Medicare beneficiaries and their families
throughout the United States living with life-limiting illness, received
care through hospice programs in the year 2020 alone; and

WHEREAS, As changes in patient diagnoses call for innovation in how
hospices provide care to those in need; and

WHEREAS, Hospice and palliative care organizations are advocates and
educators about advance care planning that help individuals and families
make decisions about the care they want; and

WHEREAS, Although the criteria to be enrolled in hospice and
palliative care differs, both services manage symptoms to help keep

loved one comfortable, and services can be provided at any time during a
serious illness; and

WHEREAS, Sharing a holistic and integrative approach to care by
treating the whole person - physically, emotionally, spiritually, and
socially, both hospice and palliative care focus on relieving symptoms,
pain and stress, for the patient, their caregivers and their family;
now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to
memorialize Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim November 2024, as Hospice
and Palliative Care Awareness Month in the State of New York; and be it
further

RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be
transmitted to The Honorable Kathy Hochul, Governor of the State of New
York.