When someone is facing the hard reality of life’s end approaching, the most vital support he or she can receive comes from family and loved ones. But the end-of-life process leaves hard decisions, pain management and a need for personal assistance and support for those family members and loved ones as well as the dying person.
Quality of care, dignity of life: SMC Hospice offers support in difficult times
By: Daniel Arens, Hazen Star Editor
Sakakawea Hospice is a program that provides care and support for both patients and their families who are coping with a terminal illness. It is Sakakawea Hospice’s 30th anniversary this year. “Our goal is to be creating comfort and giving the best quality of care for the days that the patient has left,” Nikki Martens, RN with Sakakawea Hospice, said. “We serve our caregivers as much as we do the patients. We really teach the caregivers how they can take care of their loved one.”
“They are amazing,” Sydney Furr said. “They provided everything for Stephen. We wanted for nothing. We had fresh linens, hospital gowns, special underwear, medication.” Sydney’s husband Stephen was put on hospice in February of 2026 after doctors found out that he had cancer. “They would come in and check his conditions and his vitals two or three times a week, at least,” Sydney said. “When, in the middle of the night, I got scared about him and called, Nikki was there in the middle of the night and gave us comfort.” The support from hospice members is both personal and practical. “They educated us on how to take care of Steve,” she said. “They showed us how to administer his meds and explained what would be coming down the pike.”
“We work with other nursing staff to be another set of eyes,” Martens said. “We are trained to monitor symptoms at end-of-life. We work with the primary care provider and the family to make things as comfortable as possible for the patient.” Hospice services include nursing and physician services, assistance with medication, physical/occupational/speech-language therapies if needed, home health aide services, medical supplies/equipment, inpatient care (including respite care if needed), licensed social worker, counseling for spiritual, dietary and other needs, continuous care during crisis periods, specially trained volunteers and bereavement services.
Martens and Stein noted that people are sometimes hesitant to go on hospice, or have a loved one put on hospice, because they worry about acknowledging the reality of approaching death or think that hospice is only for someone who is just about to die. “One of the biggest misconceptions about hospice is that it is for people who are in bed and who are dying in the next few days,” Martens said. “Hospice is for patients whose doctors do not believe they have a life expectancy of over six months and who are ready to quit treatment. In fact, we want to get people to us as soon as they are ready to be off treatment, because then we have more time to build relationships and to help provide a better quality of life for the patient. Patients actually live longer than if they are not on hospice, because they are able to manage their symptoms and build relationships.”
“We have had patients who are able to continue doing yardwork at home,” Stein added. Martens said Sakakawea Hospice has two chaplains who work with the program, Earl Babb and Walt Wolff. They can offer spiritual and religious support for patients and families working through the end-of-life process.“Patients can be at home, staying at the hospital or at a long-term care facility,” Martens added. “Wherever they are, we go and provide care for them there.”
“Another thing we started doing is creating these fingerprint pendants,” Jenae Stein, another RN with Sakakawea Hospice, said. “And, if there is an EKG, we can do a heartbeat in a bottle, where part of the EKG strip is placed in a bottle and spins there.” The families of patients also receive a hospice quilt. If the patient was a veteran, the family receives a plaque thanking the person for serving the country. “I think one of the most beneficial things we do is normalizing death and explaining that that is what happens and this is what it looks like,” Martens said.
“It does help,” Sydney added. “This is all part of the process. To be honest, Nikki and Jenae are our angels. I could not have done it without them.” Sydney’s experience with Sakakawea Hospice is mirrored by that of other families who have worked through the difficult process of caring for a family member at end-of-life and receiving support, education and comfort from hospice members and volunteers.
“I heard from friends of mine about their experience with hospice,” Darrell Berger said. “We have found hospice to be a wonderful aid on the path to an already defined outcome. Helpful, accommodating, and understanding as you travel to your pain-controlled demise. I certainly recommend the process wholeheartedly and have great admiration of the hospice personnel. It's difficult to make the transition from treatment to comfort. Nikki and Jenae made that transition possible and were there helping Mary and family through this life-ending journey. Darrell’s wife Mary was put on hospice in March of 2025. She died on May 25, 2025, and Darrell said the process would have been more difficult for both of them without the help from Sakakawea Hospice. Nikki and Jenae were the two primary nurses, and they did just a wonderful job. They were very patient, very helpful and explained everything that they did and what Mary was going through.”
Sheila Marshell, whose dad Harold Voigt passed away in April of this year, agreed. “For myself and my family, Dad was the first parent that we lost,” she said. “They really helped to guide us through the whole process. They have wonderful staff, support staff and volunteers, and they made the whole process as easy as it could be for our family.”
Darrell said Martens and Stein would drive up twice a week to where the Bergers had a place at Cabin Site No. 2 near Pick City, checking vitals and keeping records of what was going on with Mary, while also helping with medications. “They really attended to any other needs that Mary required,” he added. “They helped not only me, but several of her closest friends who were also on the same journey and were keeping an eye on Mary. Nikki and Jenae kept them up to speed, also.”
Marshell said that the Sakakawea Hospice nurses worked well with the staff at Knife River Care Center in Beulah, where Voigt was living. “The nursing staff at KRCC is second-to-none. They are wonderful people who took beautiful care of my dad for two years,” Marshell said. “But hospice gave us one more set of eyes on my dad. And it made the process of his passing easier.”
Berger encouraged people going through the end-of-life journey with a loved one to take advantage of the resources and support that Sakakawea Hospice provides. “It is something that is so helpful and something I would totally recommend,” he said, adding that it was Mary’s wish to have the Sakakawea Hospice program listed as the charity of choice for donations in her obituary. Marshell said that, while death is never an easy process to work through, the hospice program provided respect and dignity for her father and his life. “They added that element of dignity to my dad’s death,” she said. “That was one of the things that my dad talked to me about earlier. He told me that, when we got to the point where he needed hospice, he wanted to die with dignity and respect.”
For those who have a terminal diagnosis, life might be short, but it still goes on. And there are ways to make the remainder of life as comfortable and meaningful as possible. “I think the most important reason for using hospice is that they give you options for end-of-life,” Marshell said. “They help you progress in the way that you want to go. They don’t just make decisions. They ask you, ‘What do you want? What is important to you?’ And that makes it as easy as it can be.”
Each year, the hospice program holds two significant fundraisers that are used to help provide the program with the money it needs to offer the best quality of care possible. The Valentine’s Day Cookie Fundraiser includes making cookies, delivering cookies and eating cookies: People are able to order a plate of cookies to deliver to someone. “Anybody can be involved in that,” Stein said. “We deliver to businesses and schools the day before Valentine’s Day.” The galleria at Sakakawea Medical Center includes any of the trays of cookies that are not spoken for, and anyone can make a donation to the hospice program and take a tray with them. In March or April, the program holds its annual Grape Escape event. Held at Hazen City Hall, the fundraiser includes wine tasting, hors d’oeuvres and both a live and silent auction, with local businesses donating baskets or donations for special items.
Sakakawea Hospice recently received a generous donation from Home Instead, with which they were able to purchase four hospital beds and five oxygen concentrators. The volunteers can bring these with them for patients to use in their own homes or rooms of where they are living. The Sakakawea Hospice program has a coverage area of Mercer County as well as eastern Dunn County and northern Oliver County, including Dodge and Halliday in the west to Stanton and Fort Clark in the east and from Pick City and Twin Buttes south to Center and Hannover. “We are available to meet patients and caregivers where they are, 24/7, including at 3 in the morning,” Martens said.
“SMC Hospice is a non-profit hospital-based program owned and operated by Hazen Memorial Hospital Association, Hazen, North Dakota,” Sakakawea Hospice’s statement of purpose says. “Our hospice program exists to meet the needs of terminally ill patients and their families. We support the hospice philosophy in that the impending death of an individual warrants a change in focus from curative to palliative care. “Our main concern is the management of terminal disease in such a way that the patients live until they die, that their families live with them as they are dying – and on living afterwards,” the statement continues.
