An area hospice utilized by families in Madison, Dallas, Adair and Guthrie County has gone through a recent change in its services.

The Middle River Hospice at Madison County Memorial Hospital in Winterset is now known as HCI Hospice Care Services, and nurse Jean Walker says that while her organization still brings good, quality, rural-based care to its patients, they can now reach more people.

“Our board decided to close (Middle River Hospice) and go through the process of transitioning patients allowing them to choose which hospice they wanted, but we elected to go with HCI Care Services as a non-profit that serves a larger area, and therefore sort of merging our fortunes as it were.  We’re hoping to continue to give good, quality care to the people in our community as well as reaching out a little further.”

Walker says the former Middle River Hospice only served families within a 30 mile radius of Madison County Memorial Hospital.

In the month since HCI opened up its new offices in Winterset, Walker says she has already felt the impact of being part of the HCI Hospice network.

“They have a great reputation, a lot of integrity, and I’ve noticed that in this past month that every decision that gets made about our patients and their families are exactly what we would have down with our smaller program.  Always the patient comes first, whatever will help their quality of life… we always used to say that if it’s not illegal or unethical then we’re going to try and make it happen for (the patient) and HCI has the same philosophy.”

HCI Hospice Care Services is the state’s oldest non-profit hospice organization, started by a group of volunteers in 1978. It serves 36 counties in central, south-central and southeast Iowa.