Proclamation 5734

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

The hospice movement in America is an organized voluntary effort to enhance health care for dying people and their families. Hospices, expanding rapidly as a vital component of health care, provide a compassionate way for terminally ill patients to approach death naturally in a supportive environment and surrounded by family members. Hospices foster personal care, comfort, and full living, with attention to physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, especially those relating to pain and grief. The enactment in recent years of a permanent Medicare hospice benefit and an optional Medicaid benefit makes this care a possibility for more Americans.

The most important focus of hospice care is concern for patients and their families. This emphasis on the sanctity of human life and the dignity and worth of every individual is exactly why we set aside a time to salute the professional staffs of our Nation's approximately 1,700 hospices and the thousands of volunteers who give freely of themselves in this endeavor.

The Congress, by House Joint Resolution 234, has designated November 1987 as "National Hospice Month" and has authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this month.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 1987 as National Hospice Month. I urge all government agencies, the health care community, appropriate private organizations, and the people of the United States to observe the month of November with appropriate programs and activities to recognize and support hospice care.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twelfth.

RONALD REAGAN

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 10:36 a.m., October 30, 1987]