Miami, Florida, August 6, 2007 – A hospice home health aide who also helps the homeless in her community was recently honored at the prestigious VITAS Innovative Hospice Care® National Employee Recognition Awards.

VITAS, the nation’s leading hospice provider with 8,640 employees, each year recognizes those who best serve their patients, families and fellow employees. Cynthia Maldonado of Orlando, a home health aide in the Central Florida program, was among this year’s 25 honorees. She received the Hugh Westbrook Community Service Award for her work with local indigent people.

Maldonado, a VITAS employee since 1999, loves all her patients but is especially drawn toward those who have no nearby family or a place to call home. “She becomes their family,” says Susan Broitman, Maldonado’s manager. Maldonado ensures they have food, clothes and supplies; she spends her own money to make them comfortable. She has been known to give a patient a television set, and once welcomed into her home an elderly woman who had been evicted. The woman lived with her for three months until a VITAS social worker was able to find her a place to live.

Maldonado is also active with the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida, for which she regularly collects and cleans clothes, toys and blankets.

As one of the “best of the best,” Maldonado was recently rewarded with a weekend celebration at a beachfront hotel in South Florida.