Palliative & Hospice Care

Causes Palliative & Hospice Care

Give comfort and support to seriously ill patients and their families

Our services help people live well physically, emotionally, and spiritually in the face of illness. Your generosity helps make this work possible.

Exterior photo of the Jack Byrne Center for Palliative & Hospice Care, aglow in the twilight.

Everyone who works at the Center treated us with sensitivity and inspired a sense of calm and reassurance. Creating the opportunity for people to experience death with dignity, without pain, and without anxiety, is an incredibly important thing for a medical facility to do.”

Janet Miller Haines
Janet Miller Haines sits in the Jack Byrne Center for Palliative & Hospice Care.

Focusing on what matters most

Unlike any other facility in our region, the Jack Byrne Center for Palliative & Hospice Care is a place of comfort for critically ill patients and their families. In a homelike environment with private patient rooms, a family kitchen, and spaces for quiet reflection, patients receive care to ease pain and manage their symptoms, while families benefit from a wide array of support services.

We understand that people seeking palliative care are often facing the most difficult times in their lives. Throughout Dartmouth Health, our team of palliative care providers support them with highly personalized care. Taking into account our patients’ values and treatment preferences, we create a one-of-a-kind approach that includes what matters most to each individual. We’re also training the next generation of outstanding palliative care professionals, and conducting research to help enrich the experiences of patients everywhere. Through participation in community-based efforts, we’re improving access to high-quality palliative care to people throughout our region.

palliative care

People often think palliative care is about dying well, but the focus of our program is on living well, whether a person has years left or days. By listening carefully to patients with serious illness and their families, we help them form realistic goals and give them the supports they need to achieve them.”

Kathryn B. Kirkland, MD
Dorothy and John J. Byrne, Jr., Distinguished Chair in Palliative Medicine; Section Chief and Director, Palliative Care
Dorothy and John J. Byrne, Jr., Distinguished Chair in Palliative Medicine Kathryn B. Kirkland, MD; Director, Palliative Care

Our commitment to patient- and family-centered care

Care at the Jack Byrne Center isn’t just patient focused, but touches everyone connected to the patient. While patients receive treatment to alleviate symptoms and manage pain, they and their visitors can find comfort through offerings like massage, pet therapy, live harp music, or peaceful contemplation in the non-denominational chapel or the Center’s garden. The Center also serves as a hub for research, education, and community engagement with programming that includes caregiver support, bereavement support, advance care planning, skills training for lay caregivers, and therapeutic workshops with artists and writers.

A massage therapist rubs the back of someone’s neck.
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203-257-2689