Hospice Support Care in New Haven, CT
Non-medical hospice support — homemaker-companion services that complement hospice nursing during a parent's final months at home.
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
You got the call from the hospice nurse while you were sitting in the parking garage at Yale New Haven Hospital, the one on Howard Avenue, still holding a coffee you hadn’t touched. The word “comfort measures” was used, and everything after that was a blur. Now you’re trying to figure out how to be in two places at once: at your parent’s side and also keeping everything else from falling apart.
We work alongside hospice nurses, not instead of them. Our aides come into the home and handle the daily physical and emotional presence that a nursing visit can’t provide around the clock. Someone to sit with your parent through the night. Someone to help with positioning, bathing, and keeping the space calm and clean.
You don’t have to carry all of this yourself. We’re here to help you share the weight of it.
Hospice support care is non-medical help that runs alongside the clinical team your family already has. When someone is receiving hospice services, the nurses and social workers check in regularly, but they aren’t there every hour. Our aides fill that space: personal hygiene, mouth care, positioning to prevent discomfort, light meal preparation, and steady companionship through the hours that otherwise stretch on alone.
Many families in New Haven reach out to us shortly after a discharge from Yale New Haven Hospital, when someone has transitioned to home hospice and the family suddenly realizes how much continuous support is actually needed. Neighborhoods like East Rock, Westville, and Fair Haven are all areas we serve regularly, and we try to match aides who can reach your address without long travel times, so coverage stays reliable.
Families also call us when they need a break. Sitting with a dying parent is one of the most exhausting things a person can do. Our aides give you permission to sleep, eat, or step outside for an hour without guilt. That relief matters more than most families expect it to.
Private Duty Aides was founded by a working nurse who understood exactly what end-of-life care at home demands, and that background shapes how we train, select, and brief every aide who works on a hospice case. We don’t send someone who has never been in this situation before and expect them to figure it out.
Nurse-founded, and it shows
Our founder worked as a nurse and saw firsthand what families managing end-of-life care at home actually needed: aides who are calm under pressure, who understand what hospice nurses are doing and why, and who can hold the space without needing to be managed themselves.
Built around this service specifically
We brief every aide before a hospice case starts. That means reviewing the clinical picture, the family’s preferences, the physical layout of the home, and any particular sensitivities. Someone walking in prepared is a completely different experience than someone showing up and asking where things are.
We pick up the phone
End-of-life care doesn’t keep business hours. When something shifts at two in the morning and you need to reach someone at the agency, you can. We stay reachable because we know that a missed call in this situation isn’t a minor inconvenience.
We know New Haven
We understand how the discharge process works at Yale New Haven Hospital, we know the neighborhoods across New Haven County, and we have aides who work regularly in this area. That familiarity means fewer surprises for your family.
How it works
You tell us what’s happening. We listen. There are no intake forms to fill out before you can talk to someone, and no pressure to commit to anything on the first call. We just want to understand your situation.
For hospice support work specifically, temperament and experience matter as much as availability. We look at who your parent is, what the care environment is like, and who we have that is genuinely suited to this kind of work before we make a match.
Often same day when the situation is urgent, which it often is in end-of-life cases. We know New Haven families don’t always have a week to wait, and we staff accordingly.
You hear from us regularly. If something changes in the care needs or the hospice team makes an adjustment, we want to know so we can respond. You’ll never be left wondering if anyone is paying attention.
Why families choose us
Every aide is trained and supervised through an RN’s lens — not just placed and forgotten.
Personality fit matters more than skill on paper. We match for temperament, pace, and patience.
No franchise rotation. You work with the people who run this agency — direct, accessible, accountable.
Most families are matched with a caregiver within 24 to 48 hours. When something shifts at home, we move quickly.
We build a daily structure around your parent’s rhythm — meals, walks, evenings — and protect it.
You hear from us, not just the aide. Updates on appetite, sleep, mood, mobility — the things that matter.
Every caregiver clears a multi-step screening — background check, reference checks, and an in-person interview with our RN founder — before they're ever placed in a home.
Why families trust us
Private Duty Aides is nurse-founded. Every caregiver clears a multi-step screening — a background check, reference checks, and an in-person interview with our RN founder — before they are ever placed in a home. You get the same consistent caregiver, matched by a nurse, not whoever happens to be available.
Common questions
A typical day includes help with personal hygiene, oral care, repositioning to keep your parent comfortable, light housekeeping in the immediate area, and steady companionship through quiet or difficult hours. We also support family members who are present, making sure someone is always with your parent even when you need to step away. The exact tasks depend on where your parent is in the process, and we adjust as things change.
In most cases we can start within 48 hours, and when a situation is urgent we often get someone in place the same day. Families leaving Yale New Haven Hospital on a Friday afternoon have called us and had an aide in the home that evening. We keep staffing available specifically because hospice transitions don't wait for convenient timing.
We are a private-pay agency, so we do not bill Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance. The hospice benefit through Medicare does cover nursing visits, social work, and chaplain services, but it typically does not cover the kind of continuous aide presence that families need at home. Many families pay out of pocket for our services to fill that gap. We'll be straightforward with you about costs before anything starts.
A home health aide typically works under a medical plan of care, performing skilled tasks ordered by a physician and billed through insurance. Our hospice support aides provide non-medical comfort care: presence, hygiene assistance, companionship, and family relief. We work alongside your hospice clinical team rather than duplicating what they do. The goal is to cover the hours and needs that fall between clinical visits.
Yes, and for hospice cases we take this more seriously than for any other type of care. You'll tell us about your parent: their temperament, what makes them comfortable or anxious, cultural background, any preferences about the gender of their aide. We use that to make a real match, not just fill a shift. If the first match doesn't feel right after a few days, we'll adjust without any awkwardness.
We always have coverage. If your regular aide is sick or unavailable, we contact you and have a backup in place before the shift starts. We never leave a family without someone. In hospice situations especially, we treat any gap in coverage as something that has to be solved immediately, not the next business day.
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Hospice Care near New Haven
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Private Duty Aides — New Haven, CT
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