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Hospice
Promoter Josefina B. Magno Dies By Claudia Levy Washington Post, July 30, 2003
In 1977, four years after the first U.S. hospice was established in Connecticut, the Northern Virginia organization was launched by Dr. Magno and fellow Northern Virginians Pat and Richard Pastore and Dorothy and Larry Garrett. It consisted of Dr. Magno and a volunteer, Cynthia Todd. Today it is part of the Hospices of the National Capital Region, which serves more than 600 patients a day. Hospice care is directed at providing comfort and dignity to the terminally ill and to their families and friends. Hospice teams include physicians, nurses, social workers, clergy, lay volunteers and bereavement counselors. Over the years, hospice in the United States has developed into a large network of at-home and inpatient services. Dr. Magno, a native of the Philippines, drew on the experience of the first modern-day hospice, St. Christopher's, begun in West London in 1967. She went on to become an international spokeswoman for the movement. As the first executive director of the National Hospice Organization of the United States, she helped push the number of U.S. hospice programs from less than 100 to 1,200, serving every state. Dr. Magno was a magna cum laude medical graduate of the University of Santo Tomas. She married a physician who had been a classmate there, and they had seven children. Her husband, Dr. Cesar P. Magno, died of cancer after 11 years of marriage. Dr. Magno was assistant to the Philippines secretary of health before moving to Northern Virginia in 1969. She became community medical coordinator of the rehabilitation project of Georgetown University Hospital and was detailed to work in the office of the secretary of health, education and welfare. In 1972, she was found to have breast cancer. She underwent a radical mastectomy and radiation treatments. She later said she saw for the first time the anguish and the suffering that cancer patients and their families go through, which persuaded her to train as a cancer specialist. "But I soon learned oncologists routinely treated patients (with drugs or radiation) until the day they died," she said in a 1996 interview with the Chicago Tribune. "That didn't seem the right thing to do in many cases. "We developed the hospice concept to eliminate the physical suffering of terminally ill patients (most often through palliative drugs) so people wouldn't feel so isolated." She established a pilot project on hospice care at Georgetown after training in England and Montreal. The project maintained six beds at the Washington Home and was able to secure a pledge of coverage for patients by Blue Cross-Blue Shield. Dr. Magno also worked to reverse the lack of hospice interest by a medical profession focused on curing illness and prolonging life. A spokesman for the Washington area hospice organization said the data that came out of the pilot project later became useful to Congress when the Social Security Act was amended to allow Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement of hospice care. Dr. Magno organized the International Hospice Institute in 1984 to train doctors in the management of terminal illness. Now called the International Association of Hospice and Palliative Care, the group works to establish hospice care in developing countries. After the Northern Virginia hospice was well established, Dr. Magno was education, research and development director of the Henry Ford Hospice in Detroit. She received several honorary degrees and a number of honors from organizations in this country and abroad. She was the 1981 Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia for having achieved excellence in endeavors that add to the quality of life. Survivors include six children, Jose Magno, Manny Magno and Cesar Magno, all of Detroit, Vincent Magno of Richmond and Nanette Magno-Velayo and Carlo Magno, both of Manila; three sisters; a brother; 15 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. A son, Mario Magno, died in 1992. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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