SNA

Committee head Greg Gerritt gets a little help laying out the perimeters of the garden fence.                Photo by Nancy Buron

Initial work on the community gardens portion of the planned redevelopment of the Summit Avenue tot lot has moved ahead despite the absence of the water-line installation.

About a dozen people assembled in the park early Saturday, April 23, to celebrate Earth Day by pruning a remaining tree and marking out where the garden fence is to go. Previously that week, the city Parks Department removed a small tree from the garden area, but with a promise to plant a new tree elsewhere.

R.P. Iannuccillo & Sons Construction, of Providence, the contractor for the water line, said that they had not yet scheduled the work for the Summit garden because they had several other locations included in the city’s project.

Highlands on the East Side, 101 Highland Ave.

The Summit Neighborhood Association will hold its annual meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 27, at the Highlands on the East Side, 101 Highland Ave. Unfortunately, Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza has cancelled his appearance in favor of the presentation of his budget to the city. Also, a main topic of discussion at the meeting – the placing of parking meters on Hope Street – has been rejected by the city administration. The main order of business at the meeting now will be the presentation of a community activism award and the election of a new board of directors. In addition there will be pizza, wine, beer and sodas, but this year there will also be kosher snacks and wine in observance of Passover.

Dr. Edward Martin, center, leads the discussion at Summit Commons.

About a half-dozen people learned recently that palliative and hospice care is much like medical insurance, but that it alleviates the emotional burden of a terminal illness instead of the financial one.

This was the message of Dr. Edward W. Martin, chief medical officer at Hope Hospice and Palliative Care Rhode Island, at a presentation sponsored by SNA April 13 at Summit Commons.

Dr. Martin, who has about 30 years experience in the field, said the concept of comforting the dying and ensuring the quality of life they have left is fairly recent, having developed in the 1980s. Up to then, he said, medical care had been focused on avoiding death and there was little organized support for families facing the end of life of a loved one.

Beginning in Connecticut and then growing into Rhode Island, hospice care employs a core of professionals who work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to visit patients at home and guide families through aspects of care and emotional support. Palliative care focuses on patients who have longer prognoses, yet both types usually die in the comfort of their own homes. Dr. Martin cited a Dana-Farber study that found that patients with palliative care actually lived longer than patients who had only medical care.

If a patient is facing less than six months of life, Dr. Martin said, the family and the medical community must realistically face the formulation of goals centered on what is best for the loved one. Hospice or palliative care is increasingly an answer, he concluded.

The presentation was part of a series of discussions sponsored by SNA about topics of interest to the community.

Edward W. Martin, MD, MPH, FAAHPM

Caring for loved ones reaching the end of their lives can be a difficult time for all of us.

To help us cope with it, SNA is sponsoring a presentation titled “Graceful to the Finish – Hospice and Palliative Care,” by Dr. Edward W. Martin, chief medical officer at Hope Hospice & Palliative Care Rhode Island.

The free session is open to the public and will be at 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 13, in the main dining room of Summit Commons at 99 Hillside Ave. Plenty of free parking is available.

When Santa Claus visited the SNA information/membership table at the Hope Street Merchants Association winter stroll Thursday, Dec. 3, staffed by board of directors members Lee Clasper-Torch, left, and Kerry Kohring, jolly old St. Nick sought information on joining. Unfortunately he lives at the North Pole, which is not part of Summit, so he did not meet the residency requirement.