Hospice center breaks ground on facility

[cougarnurse]

Anyone near here? Hospice center breaks ground on $7 million home - Your life - Belleville News Democrat

EDWARDSVILLE -- The $7 million campaign to build Southern Illinois' first hospice home has $1.2 million, it was announced during Hospice of Southern Illinois' groundbreaking ceremony Monday.

Although rain moved festivities inside, the major contributors still donned hard hats and raised shovels of dirt to mark the beginning of construction on the 16-room facility.

The Community Hospice Home will provide care for terminally ill patients who cannot spend their last days at home, according to Rebecca Wisdom, president and chief executive officer of Hospice of Southern Illinois.

"Our mission is also to not let anyone die alone," Wisdom said.

The Hospice of Southern Illinois is a not-for-profit that serves 27 counties and has helped more than 1,500 patients and families since its conception in 1981.

The home will be named Relais Bonne Eau. In French, "Relais" means a country inn for weary travelers and "Bonne Eau" means good water.

The home will be on 17 wooded acres along Illinois 143 on the northeast end of Edwardsville and will feature walking paths, a fishing lake, and rose, meditation and hummingbird gardens.

The 17 acres and about $3 million were donated to the home by the Bon Eau Foundation, which was started three years ago by Randall Bono and his wife, Joann Bono. Randall Bono is a Madison County lawyer who has amassed a fortune representing clients in cases involving mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.

Construction on the home was expected to take about 14 to 18 months and begin as soon as possible.

Hospice care focuses on pain and symptom management and enhancing the quality of life for the patient.

In January 2006, Cecil Stevenson called the Hospice of Southern Illinois on behalf of his terminally ill wife Stevenson said the caregivers who came to his home were like angels.

"The main thing is the compassion and the love and the way my wife was treated," Stevenson said. "I can't explain it."

After his wife passed, Stevenson said the hospice workers helped him through his grief and starting over.

"What I've learned in the past two years, is that you have to have people around you that care," Stevenson said.