Reaping a harvest of goodwill in Milford

Communities in Clare are invited to play their part for the 27th Milford Hospice annual Harvest Fair taking place on Sunday.
The Harvest Fair will be located at the Unigolf complex in Castletroy, just a 10-minute walk from the Milford Care Centre in Limerick and kicks off at 1pm.
The fun family day out includes some new features this year in the kiddies area and while the children are occupied, adults will find plenty to interest them with an array of stalls offering clothes, shoes, books and cakes. The fair also includes a wheel of fortune, Munster’s largest vintage car rally, and it introduces the Bloom Forever in Our Hearts initiative.
Speaking about the importance of the Harvest Fair, Milford Care Centre chief executive, Pat Quinlan said, “The fair is the largest single voluntary fundraising event in our fundraising calendar and it has traditionally been a day where the people of the Mid-West have lent their generous financial support towards our work.”
The funds raised from the fair help to support the continuation and development of much-needed specialist palliative care services throughout the Mid-West every year.
Milford Hospice cares for over 1,000 patients and in the past year it has been developing new outpatient and day care services, together with enhanced community services aimed at supporting patients and their families in their own homes.
“Even though Milford has a central base in Limerick, it’s a regional service and the services we provide in Clare are as important to us as the service we provide in Limerick City. What we’ve tried to do over the years is to expand our services in such a way that we have a local dimension. we’re also keen to make sure if people can be supported as close as possible to their home, we try to structure our services accordingly,” Mr Quinlan said.
Milford has had a direct presence in Ennis since 1991, where they operate a home care service based out of information Age park but they are about to move to more permanent premises.
He explained that of the 1,000 patients looked after by Milford last year, a quarter of them come from the county.
“The key focus of the services in Clare is to support people to be cared for at home as long as possible. If at all possible, we would like to care for people in the home as long as it is practical to do so. That service has been operating since 1991,” Mr Quinlan outlined.
Explaining the service provided in Limerick he said patients are looked after by a full team of specialist staff led by a consultant in palliative medicine.
“People come to Milford very often because they have complex medical conditions and they need to be seen by a specialist team. The direct services in Clare are primarily in nursing and direct care, but we also provide therapy services, such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy support. we also provide social work and bereavement counselling support. A big part of the services we’ve been developing over the last few years include a very active educational department where, for example, we would provide education courses in nursing homes across Clare, helping people to understand what palliative care is all about. We would provide training programmes and we would also have had people from Clare come to Milford to the educational centre, to avail of training programmes,” he said.
He outlined that there are three elements to the service in Clare, one is where people come for specialist interventions. the next is the home service, which is about to move to a permanent base in Clare, where they hope to provide direct interventions for patients, such as physiotherapy support, occupational therapy, bereavement services and counselling support, directly from that location.
In addition to these services Milford also has a network of palliative care support bed units, which are located in the HSE community hospitals in Kilrush, Ennistymon, Raheen and Cahercalla Hospice, supported by public funding.
“The combination of having the support bed units and the interventions of the hospice’s home teams allows people to be cared for in their own locality,” Mr Quinlan said.
He added that this ability to be cared for at home and in one’s own locality is always people’s preference and is something Milford sets out to accommodate, so far as possible.
“The general approach to hospice care is that people don’t have to pay for the services. So we provide all of the services in the community free of charge. There has to be a medical referral. In effect, that means either a consultant in a general hospital or a GP,” he said.
While Milford and the hospice movement originally set out to focus on the care of people with cancer, Mr Quinlan says there has been a change in that ethos.
“We’ve seen a shift in the last few years. Currently the situation is one in five patients we look after have non-malignant conditions. We would have noticed we are also looking after a lot more people with respiratory conditions, heart failure, motor neurons, chronic illnesses so we’ve seen a move in that direction. We saw a need and we’ve responded accordingly,” he said. 
He explained Milford’s ethos and philosophy of care originated from The Little Company of Mary, who set up the hospice in 1979.
“Milford sets out to make sure every patient avails of that patient centred approach, and our care would extend beyond our patient to make sure the family is fully supported, right into bereavement. We put a big emphasis on facilities and space, so we have four or five family rooms in the in-patient area in Milford. People need to have their own space. They need to have their privacy. Patients need to be treated with respect and dignity so all of those elements are fundamental to the hospice philosophy,” he said.
Speaking about The Little Company of Mary, Sr Phyllis Donnellan from Clare explained since the order began hospice services in the Mid-West, the need has increased substantially. In 1988 the hospice unit looked after approximately 142 patients compared with 1,000 patients in 2011.
“The need grew, definitely. I keep saying ‘why is there so much cancer?’ I see it growing over the last 50 years and we’re seeing more young people, even children,” she said.
She added that fundraising is also a big part of what Milford is about. “there are so many people involved in the effort and it brings people together.
“I’m involved in the fundraising and I feel that it’s sort of nearly pastoral care for me, because people love to talk about their relatives who died. There’s a healing in that for them as well,” she said.
Each year between 15,000 and 20,000 people come from all over the Mid-West to the fair as Milford’s biggest fundraising event.
“The great plus in that is we see Milford Hospice being owned by the community. The day itself brings that kind of a bond together. Milford is there for the community and on the day of the harvest fair, we see the community respond by coming in such large numbers to the fair. It’s marvellous. It’s also a wonderful affirmation,” Mr Quinlan said.
Anyone interested in volunteering at this year’s fair this Sunday, can contact the fundraising department on 061 485859/061 485860, email fundraising@milfordcarecentre.ie or for more information on services or volunteering visit www.milforcarecentre.ie.