As many of us know, one of the THE major social justice issues that will face us and our families in the next decades will be how we and society deal with the costs of end of life care. Not only the monetary costs, but equally, the emotional and spiritual costs. Often we ask “what can we do?” One possible answer is to get involved with the major inter-disciplinary organization in the U.S. that is attempting to create reasonable responses. The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, or C-TAC, will have its annual summit on March 2 and 3 in Washington, D.C.
We posted information about this meeting on this web site and will continue to remind people of it in the coming weeks. You can find out more information by e-mailing Jackie at JBuente@TheCTAC.org.You can google C-TAC or go to TheCTAC.org. The meeting will be held at the Institute of Medicine in central DC. As the invitation states: “Participants will have the chance to become part of a national network driving change at community, state and national levels, and will leave with tools you can use”. If you are a worker in the health system , health professional, policy maker, care-giver, clergy or anyone working in or interested in this issue, I urge you to take a look at the information available from C-TAC.
The continuing importance of this issue in people’s lives cannot be over stated. The success of recent books like “Being Mortal”, the rise in choice-in-dying legislation and the frightening rise in dementia and Alzheimer’s cases, all speak to the growing need to have a comprehensive approach to advanced care. With the aging of the Boomers, the challenges of possible limits to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and the stresses put on families to pay for care, the time is at hand to raise this discussion to a national level. I am sure that everyone who reads this knows of these challenges either from first hand experience or from someone close.
I look forward to seeing you at the meeting in March. Full disclosure, I co-chair C-TAC’s committee on Spiritulity and Diversity.
Shalom and Todah,
Rabbi Richard F Address. D.MIn
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
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