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Tuesday, May 13
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 Katrina Agnew |
Confronting the Cultural Taboos of Death and Dying
Originally published in Chicago Hospital News, Feb. 2006
By James Vanelle
“You’ve got to identify the need,” Katrina Agnew will tell you. If she sounds like a successful educator, advocate and salesperson, it could be because she is. She has worked in hospice for 11 years, beginning as a VITAS admissions coordinator in 1994. She worked her way up to VITAS Representative to Senior Rep and has been Director of Market Development for VITAS’ Chicagoland South program since 2003.
It’s not easy trying to educate about something no one wants to talk about, and Agnew has yet another obstacle: when developing inner-city hospice programs, she’s up against cultural taboos on top of the general avoidance of the subjects of death and dying.
“Hospice is not readily acceptable to so many. African Americans don’t believe you get something for nothing,” she says, alluding to the Medicare Hospice Benefit that allows hospice care at little or no cost to patients who qualify. “And Hispanics are not open to letting strangers care for their loved ones.”
Agnew finds ways around these obstacles. For her, VITAS is a mission. She works with VITAS’ access initiative, educating underserved communities about the benefits and privileges of hospice, always keeping in mind that the first step is to identify their needs. She explains that hospice patients are only getting what they’ve paid into when they take advantage of the Medicare Hospice Benefit. She describes how often families report that “it was a privilege to have those hospice people in my home” following the death of a loved one.
“Hospice is your right, your entitlement,” Agnew says with conviction. “For people not to know that is almost criminal.”
Katrina Agnew was working in healthcare in the early ‘90s; her goal was to become a nurse until she was recruited by VITAS to work in admissions. “I saw a lot of opportunity at VITAS, because they promoted from within,” she says. It’s something she points out to the reps who report to her today. And she still sees opportunity for herself. Agnew hopes one day to be general manager of a VITAS program, inspired by her own GM, Margi Carlson, Vice President of Development Judy Rybka and others.
“VITAS gave me the chance to succeed,” Agnew says. “Every time I want to go to the next level, there is always someone there to support me.”
Margi Carlson hands the praise right back to Agnew. “We have a saying here,” she says, “‘If you do the right things consistently for the right reasons, you will succeed.’ Katrina has taken that to heart.”
James Vannelle, vice president of market development and admissions for VITAS Healthcare Corporation, can be reached at 1-800-93VITAS.
100 South Biscayne Blvd, Suite 1500 Miami, FL
33131 (305) 374-4143 |
