Vipul Shah, MD
Medical Director of McLeod Hospice and Palliative Care

I write to you today with my heart full of gratitude for our generous supporters of the McLeod Health Foundation’s Butterfly Fund. As the Medical Director of McLeod Hospice and Palliative Care, I am humbled daily by their support.

I want to share with you some of the amazing enhancements to care that have happened this year because of donors to the Butterfly Fund and to tell you of a new pressing need.

Last year, we told donors of the dire need to have an additional Nurses Aide on staff to help with an ever-increasing demand for in-home assistance for families.

Through donor gifts, we were able to hire another compassionate aide. So many times, our patients’ caregivers are either elderly or the child or a friend who have no training in caring for a terribly ill loved one.

Our aides regularly go to the homes to perform necessary tasks such as bathing the patient. Often having a bath and getting their hair washed makes the patients feel human again. The aide’s help and guidance relieves tremendous stress for both the patient and the caregivers.

Also, through donor support we were able to hire a much needed coordinator for the Butterfly Fund. Perry joins us with both a wonderful skill set and amazing compassion.

When one of our staff is in the patient’s home and sees a need, they can call Perry and he does all the leg work to ensure the Butterfly Fund can step in to provide the needed assistance. He is so knowledgeable and efficient, and the families love him.

I hope that you are feeling the gratitude that our patients, their families and our teams have for our Butterfly Fund donors. They have trusted us to use their gifts to help others and they have made a tremendous difference.

Through the generous support of Butterfly Fund donors, we regularly supply patients with the nutritional supplement Ensure. This is vitally important however our teams have realized there is also a significant need for additional food.

Food insecurity is very prevalent with our patients when they and often their caregivers are unable to work due to their illness. I want to tell you about one of our patients to help show you this need.

This gentleman was only 59 years old, working with few financial concerns when he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. He is now unable to work and has no disability benefits. He must pay $271 per week for his health insurance. He lives in a mobile home beside his mother, and she is trying to help but also struggles because she can’t work either.

While his insurance covers his care, it does not help with nutrition. He was hesitant to allow our staff to visit him yet when he was told they would be regularly supplying him with Ensure he began to cry.

This patient and so many like him are in desperate need of your help. We are asking our McLeod Hospice and Palliative Care donors like you to help us establish a Food Pantry. 

Our plan is to purchase food staples recommended by our nutritionist and to have volunteers prepare the food bags which can be taken regularly by our teams into the homes of those in need. This will be an efficient way to help those patients who may otherwise go hungry. 

Won’t you help us establish this vital service with your gift in support of the Butterfly Fund?

Thank you for reading this letter. Thank you for caring. Thank you for giving hope through your generous donation.

With gratitude,

Vipul Shah, MD
McLeod Hospice and Palliative Care Medical Director

 

P.S. We are counting on you so please send your gift today or make your gift on-line at www.mcleodfoundation.org.