Our Palliative Care program is called Helping Understand Guidance and Support (HUGS). The HUGS team works to provide emotional support to the family before, during, after the birth or death of the child.
Palliative Care is the specialized medical care for children with serious illnesses. It focuses on providing relief from symptoms, pain, and stress of a serious illness—whatever the diagnosis. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the child and the family. The combined efforts of the child’s parents and family, physicians, nurses, chaplains, hospice, and other resources provide compassionate and dignified care during the life of the child (whether it be years, months, weeks, days, hours, or even minutes). Palliative Care is also called “comfort care” because the focus is not on treatments that cure or prolong life, but on family-centered care that promote quality of life.
