“I wish to be in the same room as my wife so I can hold her hand”: CalvertHealth grants husband’s final wish
The Baynet, Calvert County, MD; by CalvertHealth; 7/19/26 
It was one final wish Phillip “Phil” Pfanschmidt shared after learning he had terminal cancer. Just days earlier, his wife of more than 66 years, Joyce “Joy” Pfanschmidt, had entered hospice care at CalvertHealth Medical Center. Now, Phil had entered hospice as well. When members of the palliative care team asked about his wishes, he didn’t hesitate. He wanted to be with Joy.
Caregivers across CalvertHealth worked together to make that wish a reality. Phil was reunited with Joy, and the couple spent precious moments together, hand in hand. Less than two hours later, Joy peacefully passed away with her hand resting on Phil’s arm. ...
In his autobiography, Born to Live, Phil reflected on what mattered most. “For the last 64 years [as of 2024], every morning when I wake up and every evening before I go to sleep, I give thanks for the woman sleeping beside me.” ... Phil passed away on Friday, July 10, just nine days after Joy.

4 hospices see growth  
Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 7/17/26 
Some hospices have opened new locations in the Midwest and East, while other providers have expanded their geographic service reach. Additionally, one Texas-based hospice has unveiled a new children’s grief program.

• Wisconsin-based Unity has partnered with the senior nursing home provider Meadowbrook at Oconto Falls to open a new hospice care unit. ...
• MiraSol Health has opened a new office in Walterboro, S.C. in part to expand community relationships and awareness in the area. ...
• Texas-based Hospice of Midland has launched a new peer-supported bereavement program for children and teens who have experienced the death of a loved one by suicide. ...
• Mississippi-based Arden Home Health + Hospice has opened a new location in its home state, expanded its geographic service reach across eight new counties. ...

All Saints Hospice hosts first-ever school supply drive for Lake Charles students 
KPLC-7, Lake Charles, LA; by Brendan Brown; 7/18/26 
A Lake Charles hospice center is going beyond patient care and into the classroom. All Saints Hospice is collecting school supplies for local students, hoping to ease the financial burden on families before the new school year begins. Getting kids ready for the first day of school isn’t cheap. Bookbags, pencils, paper, binders the list adds up quickly, and for many Lake Charles families, it can be an expensive task to take on. According to the National Education Association, school supply costs increased by 7.6 percent for the 2025-2026 school year compared to the year before, a trend that could continue heading into the next school year.

The impact of environment on palliative care practices and needs 
Europe Says | Environment; 7/19/26 
Climate change is now recognised as one of the greatest public health threats globally. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, floods, droughts, air pollution affect people living with chronic, serious, and life-limiting illnesses. Patients requiring palliative care are among the most vulnerable during environmental crises. Many depend on:

• regular medications,
• electricity-dependent medical devices,
• oxygen support,
• mobility assistance,
• home visits,
• and uninterrupted access to healthcare services.

Disruptions caused by heatwaves, floods, cyclones, or poor air quality can rapidly worsen symptoms and increase suffering. Research highlights that environmental instability contributes to higher disease burdens, worsening respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, cancers, and mental health challenges, all of which increase the demand for palliative care services.

Some kids come here for vacation. Others come to die. Either way, parents are grateful 
USA TODAY, San Leandro, CA; by Madeline Mitchell; 7/20/26 
... There are mainly two kinds of families who come to George Mark's Children's House. Some come for respite, entrusting their medically fragile but otherwise stable children to skilled nurses while parents leave for a much-needed break from around-the-clock caregiving. Others come for pediatric end-of-life care, a rare and essential service that changed the trajectory of CEO Shekinah Eliassen's life. These parents stay with their children at George Mark and can bring the patient's siblings, too, to soak in their last days together. "This type of service, I believe, should be part of the system of pediatrics," Eliassen says, adding that families never see a bill for their visits. Her son, Lars, died at George Mark when he was 21 days old, after he was born having seizures. 

Person who makes a difference: Dubuque volunteer brings personal, professional experience to service 
Telegraph Herald, Dubuque, IA; by reade Snelling; 7/19/26 
After a lifetime of caring for people in the community, one might find that some time off was in order. Allen Meurer didn't, though. During and after his long career of serving Dubuque as a physician, Meurer has also been a caregiver and resource for older adults throughout the city. Now, as a volunteer at Bethany Home, Hospice of Dubuque, Hawkeye Care Center and Harmony Healthcare, plus serving on the board of directors of the first two organizations, he doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. "That's my passion, end-of-life care," Meurer said. "Since I retired about four years ago, I just continued on visiting the nursing homes like I did for my career."

The women running death salons for people of color to process grief: ‘It allows for freedom’ 
The Guardian; by Melissa Hellman; 7/19/26 
In a small cream-colored room at a cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nefertiti Moor sat at the head of a semicircle. Dressed in black with her long hair in locs, she delivered instructions for the evening discussion. "It's not death counseling or a debate," said Moor. She invited the two women in attendance to talk freely about their cultural associations with dying and grief. Tasha Johnson, who worked in behavioral health, said that she felt desensitized after the recent deaths of several people she knew. She was grappling with "the reality that it can be anyone at any point". The free-flowing conversation about mortality, otherwise known as a death salon or death cafe, was unique in that it was designed for people of color. Death salons for marginalized communities are becoming more common around the country, with practitioners addressing the unique end-of-life concerns of queer, trans, or Black and brown people.

H.R.9703 - Improving access to transfusion care for hospice patients act of 2026 
U.S. Congress.gov, House Ways and Means Committee; sponsored by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI-6); bill introduced 7/15/26 
H.R. 9703: To require the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test allowing blood transfusions to be paid separately from the Medicare hospice all-inclusive per diem payment.

CTOs say human alignment is key to cyber resilience 
SC World US Media | CyberRisk Alliance; by LevelBlue; 7/17/26 
... CTOs identify human misalignment as a key shortcoming in the cyber resilience strategy.
CTOs believe that greater collaboration could improve the effectiveness of their cyber resilience strategies. Only slightly over one quarter (27%) say their enterprise displays very close alignment, compared with about a third who say they are very competent in areas relating to cybersecurity and cyber resilience. LevelBlue’s data indicates that 75% of CTOs (compared with 61% of the overall sample) say lack of clarity around responsibility for cyber resilience often impairs strategy. A lack of clear ownership blurs accountability, delays incident response, and disconnects cyber decisions from business risk appetite. Despite strong technical defenses, this leaves organizations more exposed.

Religious scripts for dying 
The Christian Century; by Aaron Klink; 7/20/26 
Travis Pickell explores the moral burden placed on those who face end-of-life medical decisions but lack communal support. Amid much conversation about end-of-life care—its methods, costs, and ethics—there is little sustained attention to the question of why this subject generates so much political and moral controversy. The blame is sometimes placed on advances in medical technologies (such as ventilators and artificial nutrition and hydration) or in treatments (such as kidney dialysis and aggressive chemotherapy). But the reality is more complicated, argues Travis Pickell in Burdened Agency - Christian Theology and End-of-Life Ethics. ... Pickell devotes much of the book to exploring various theological understandings of death and outlining the “scripts for dying” created by each theology. 

[United Kingdom] Hospice marks 35th anniversary with exhibition 
BBC News, Channel Islands and Guernsey, United Kingdom; 7/18/26 
A charity is marking 35 years of providing specialist hospice care for people with life-limiting illnesses, through an art installation. Les Bourgs Hospice was founded in 1991 and the photographic exhibition in the Brian White Gallery at Guernsey Museum, Candie, celebrates the people and community behind it. The States of Guernsey said the gallery consisted of a series of about 70 portraits which captured "the people whose dedication, compassion and commitment" helped shape what the hospice is about. 

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. ~ Aristotle