For a few people in the last weeks or months of their lives, open meadows giving way to dense forests of fir and cedar in rural Freeland will be the comforting view as they get about the business of dying.
This spring, South Whidbey’s first hospice, Enso House, will begin taking in people suffering with terminal illness to give them a place where they can be more comfortable than they would elsewhere.
The 5,000 square foot home on Wahl Road, recently purchased by the TinyBlue Foundation, will offer the view and much more to up to six people at a time who are in their final months of life.
Enso’s director, Dr. Ann Cutcher, said the facility will provide “the home and hearth for terminally ill people.” It will be staffed in part by volunteers from the nearby Tahoma One Drop Zen Monastery.
“We will provide a home with physical, emotional and spiritual support but residents will be expected to maintain their own medical caregivers,” Cutcher said.
The cost to stay at Enso House is $75 per day, with sliding scale fee offered for those who cannot afford the full price. Cutcher said a resident aid fund is being established for those unable to afford the daily fee. The cost of medications and medical services will not be covered by Enso House. The facility will accept medical and private long-term care insurance reimbursement.
Like the other five adult homes on South Whidbey, Enso House will be licensed by the Washington State Department of Health and Human Services. But Enso is the only adult home on South Whidbey geared toward end of life care.
Vicki Staley, the communication and information director of Island County Senior Services, said the services Enso House will offer are needed.
“I think it is an exciting idea and certainly something that is really needed on the southend,” she said. “They will be able to accept low income people, and those without families to care for them.”
Hospice services at Enso House include spiritual care, counseling, visiting volunteers, and bereavement services for family members of residents.
In order to live at Enso House, prospective residents need to show a documented need for hospice level services, a “do not resuscitate” order and tuberculosis clearances.
Spiritual care is central to what the facility is, according to Cutcher.
“Our mission to provide a home for the terminally ill is inspired by traditional Zen Buddhist practice,” she said.
Whidbey General Hospital’s hospice care unit is the only end-of-life care facility on Whidbey Island. Nurses and volunteers visit patients in private homes and adult care facilities.
A private Seattle foundation, TinyBlue, purchased the home and property for Enso House two years ago. TinyBlue founders Cynthia and David Trowbridge are on Enso’s board of directors along with ordained Buddhist monk Mark Doyu Albin, One Drop Zen Monastery founder Shodo Harada Roshi, and a number of other people in the Zen Buddhist and medical communities.
As Enso’s director, Cutcher lives in a small home on the property. Before coming to Whidbey Island, she had been practicing clinical and academic Internal Medicine in Arizona as a private practitioner, and as a teaching physician at a county hospital. She helped to establish a program in Pima County to support and care for chronically ill patients and their families at home.
