It’s a bright blue house with porch and pretty garden area. A traditional Bermuda home, it’s the type of place most of us find pleasing and comforting.

This is the building the Bermuda Hospitals Board allocated for Agape House back in 1990 and it’s still appropriate today.

Agape House is the only home on the Island specially designed to care for the terminally ill. Patients and families say they like its homey atmosphere. The facility can accommodate 12 patients.

Staff work to improve the quality of a seriously ill person’s life and support patients and their families during and after treatment.

At Agape House staff focus on relieving symptoms and supporting patients. They encourage living and try to engage patients, careful to always keep them as comfortable as possible not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well.

Support is also offered to family members in the form of counselling and respite care.

In respite care patients stay at Agape House for a short period of time to allow a primary care giver and family some rest or vacation. Agape House staff includes doctors, nurses, a social worker, chaplains, nursing auxiliary staff and volunteers.

Its mission statement is: “To provide quality end of life care. We believe everyone has the right to die pain free and with dignity, regardless of age, race or disease process.

“Welcome to Agape House and Friends of Hospice. We are here for you, making a difference everyday.”

Agape House is supported by the registered charity Friends of Hospice. A board of appointed volunteers manages the charity. The charity fundraises to support staff positions, including a volunteer coordinator and hospice chef. Friends of Hospice provides funding and resources to enhance the community side of hospice life.

The major fundraiser for the charity is the annual Rubber Duck Derby; money raised in this event pays the salary of the two employees — the volunteer coordinator and hospice chef.

The charity has other fundraisers that help it to provide the extra amenities it gives to patients and their families. For example birthdays are celebrated, as are holidays and all special occasions.

[box] If you are interested in being a volunteer with Friends of the Hospice or in selling raffle tickets contact volunteer coordinator Karen Dyer on 236-0859.