The Calling of Gilchrist Kids: End of Life Care for Children and Support for Their Families

The recent rebranding campaign for Gilchrist was designed to inform the community that it is more than hospice. Gilchrist provides outstanding elder care for fully active seniors, patients with chronic disease and frailty, and those nearing end of life. Annually, Gilchrist delivers elder medical care to 7,500 individuals, hospice care to 5,400 patients, and grief counseling and bereavement services to 6,500 people. The organization also counsels people on advance care planning, guiding them through decisions about their treatment and helping them make informed choices about their end-of-life care. They truly are living up to being “more than hospice.”

What many people do not realize is that Gilchrist also has a pediatric hospice program, which provides all-inclusive end-of-life care for infants, children, and young adults with life-limiting illnesses. It is the only facility in the state with inpatient children’s hospice beds. Gilchrist Kids cares for children dying from cancer, cardiac disease, untreatable infectious disease or blood disorders, life-limiting genetic or congenital diseases, and other conditions. The program also offers perinatal support for parents-to-be who have learned that their unborn child may have an incurable illness, as well as respite care, which is critical in improving the quality of life for terminally ill children and their families.

Gilchrist opened over 20 years ago as a small hospice organization serving a few dozen people It has grown to now serving thousands of individuals throughout Central Maryland—in homes, in skilled nursing and residential care facilities, and in three inpatient hospice centers in Towson, Howard County, and Baltimore.

To find out more about Gilchrist kids, I encourage you all to watch the following two interviews with staff members from Gilchrist Kids from the shows “To Your Health” and “Greater Living,” which were broadcasted last week on the GBMC Facebook page. I think you will find them very enlightening and you will be very proud of all that they do.

To Your Health



Greater Living