The women of Mesilla Valley Hospice

A career accountant, Christine May knew Mesilla Valley Hospice was called “The Hugging Agency” when she visited to conduct a routine audit. But she turned down several offers to work there, thinking, “I’ll be too bored.”

May finally accepted a job as MVH chief financial officer 20 years ago and, until her recent retirement, never looked back.

“I have loved it here,” she said. “We run it as a management team. We all come from different perspectives and different backgrounds. We listen to what each other has to say. I love accounting. I also know how important the care is.”

The 130 employees at MVH (on site and home hospice care) and La Posada Assisted Living, a hospice neighbor and subsidiary, “create the atmosphere” that welcomes not only patients but their loved ones as well, said former CEO Nina Salmon. “They are very much a part of everything we do. We create an experience for the patient and the family,” said Salmon, who was with MVH for two decades.

“We have a lot of space here for families to gather,” said MVH Foundation executive director Lorraine Padilla. “You feel at home,” said Padilla, who joined MVH 20 years ago and currently serves as the interim CEO at MVH.

MVH’s chapel – it has a full-time priest and a full-time nondenominational chaplain on staff – has hosted weddings and baptisms so patients can be a part of the ceremonies.

Chief Nursing Officer Bertha Lewis remembers wheeling a bed into the chapel so a patient could watch his great grandson being baptized.

“He wanted to be part of it before he passed away,” said Lewis, who joined MVH 14 years ago.

“Every person who comes through that door, every phone call we ever pick up – we make sure we get it right,” Salmon said.

“What an honor when they call us,” Padilla said. “That’s a big deal, to take care of their loved ones.”

“We make the patients as comfortable as they can possibly be right up until they take their last breath,” said Lennie Brown, who left a career as a real estate agent in her 40s to become a nurse at MVH 10 years ago, beginning with home care.

“The minute I went out and took care of one patient, I knew that was what I wanted to do. I loved it right away,” said Brown, who is now the director of quality compliance at MVH.

Brown remembers visiting a home hospice patient in her 40s who had cancer and was near the end of her life. A relative was panicked when Brown arrived on a Thursday because the patient was having trouble breathing. Brown gave her the care she needed. The patient’s husband called Brown early the next week to say his wife had died after spending one last weekend with her family, which included two young children. “I just needed to thank you,” he told Brown.

MVH is the only nonprofit hospice in the area and it’s the only one that has a dedicated medical director because it also provides acute care.

“Our goal is to provide care for anybody who needs it, regardless of their ability to pay,” Padilla said.

One of MVH’s very first patients was a homeless man who had been living under a bridge.

“We’ve proven over and over and over to be what the community needs,” Lewis said. “We take care of patients and families when they need us the most.”

Sometimes that means working with people who have never dealt with the death of a loved one.

“The staff is knowledgeable about what’s coming,” Lewis said. Families “need that support. It’s priceless.”

“To be asked to care for someone when they die is a beautiful thing,” Brown said.

Volunteers are an invaluable part of the MVH team, all the women said, and more are always welcome. Volunteers handle a wide range of duties at MVH, everything from filing, gardening and running errands to holding the hands of patients without loved ones as they die.

Volunteers “bring so much joy to the patients,” Lewis said.

It’s a rewarding experience for the volunteers as well.

“People want to volunteer somewhere they have a purpose,” Lewis said. At hospice, “they’re making a difference.”

Volunteers also help fill the feeders found at every patient’s window, welcoming the birds that fill the grounds and gardens with their color and chatter.

“We all belong together,” Padilla said.

“It’s a family,” said Salmon. “Even the birds know.”