Hospice Support Care in Norfolk, 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 were sitting in the small waiting room at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital when the hospice coordinator said the words you had been bracing yourself to hear for months. The drive back along Route 44 through Norfolk was quiet, the fields brown and still, and by the time you turned onto your road you already knew the next question was not whether your family could handle this, but how. The hours between hospice nurse visits are long, and nobody warned you just how long they would feel. We’re here to fill that time with steadiness, real presence, and hands-on help so your family can actually be present rather than stretched thin trying to do everything at once.
Hospice support care is the layer of help that sits alongside your hospice nursing team. The hospice nurses manage medication, pain protocols, and medical decisions. We handle everything around that: personal hygiene, repositioning for comfort, light housekeeping, meal preparation, and simply sitting with your family member so they are never alone and never feel forgotten.
On a typical day, that might mean arriving early to help with morning routines, keeping the house calm and clean, preparing small meals or beverages, reading aloud, or just being a steady presence in the room. When Charlotte Hungerford Hospital discharges a patient to home hospice, the transition can feel abrupt. Families often return to Norfolk with a care plan but without nearly enough hands to carry it out, and that gap is exactly where we step in.
For families throughout Norfolk, including those in the quieter corners of town closer to Dennis Hill State Park or out toward Haystack Mountain, we bring consistent, attentive support to whatever home setting the person is in, whether that is a long-time family home or a family member’s guest room set up as a care space. The goal is that your family can sit at the bedside as family, not as exhausted caregivers managing every physical detail.
Private Duty Aides was founded by a working nurse, and that matters deeply for hospice support specifically. Our founder has been in those rooms. She understands what a hospice nurse needs when she arrives for a visit, what a family looks like at hour seventy-two of this, and what kind of aide presence actually helps rather than adds noise to a difficult situation.
Nurse-founded
Our agency was started by a working nurse who had watched families struggle with exactly this, navigating end-of-life at home with too little support and too much to manage. That experience shaped everything about how we train and select aides for hospice work.
Specific to hospice support
We do not treat hospice support as a standard companion shift with a different label. Our aides who take these assignments have experience with comfort care, understand how to communicate with the hospice nursing team, and know how to hold space for a family in grief.
We stay reachable
When something changes, which it will, you call us and we pick up. You will not spend twenty minutes navigating a phone tree during one of the hardest stretches of your life. We are a small, attentive agency, and that is intentional.
Local to Norfolk and Litchfield County
We know how discharge from Charlotte Hungerford Hospital works, we know what resources exist in this part of Connecticut, and we know that Norfolk families often have less local backup than families in larger cities. We plan around that.
How it works
There are no forms to fill out and no pressure to decide anything on the first call. You tell us what is happening, and we ask the questions that help us understand what your family actually needs right now.
For hospice support, matching is not about filling a slot. We think about temperament, experience with end-of-life care, and what kind of presence will fit your family’s pace and your parent’s personality.
Often it starts the same day for Norfolk families facing urgent need. We understand that hospice timelines do not always give you a week to prepare, and we build our scheduling around that reality.
You will not be handed off and forgotten. We check in regularly, adjust the care plan as things change, and make sure you always know who to call when something shifts.
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
On a typical day, a hospice support aide might help with a morning sponge bath, assist with repositioning for comfort, prepare simple meals or fluids, keep the room tidy and calm, and sit with your family member so they are not alone. If the hospice nurse is coming that afternoon, we make sure everything is in order before she arrives. The shape of the day follows the person, not a fixed checklist, because at this stage what matters most is comfort and presence.
We can often start the same day a family calls, and nearly always within 48 hours. If you are being discharged from Charlotte Hungerford Hospital to home hospice in Norfolk, you can call us from the hospital and we will work to have someone in place by the time you arrive home. We know those first hours back can be the most disorienting, and we try to remove that uncertainty wherever we can.
Private Duty Aides is a private-pay agency, which means we do not bill Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance directly. Medicare's hospice benefit covers nursing visits, medications related to the terminal diagnosis, and some other services, but it does not cover the kind of extended daily aide presence that most families need. Many families pay out of pocket for our services alongside their hospice benefit. We are transparent about costs from the first call so there are no surprises.
A home health aide typically works under a medical care plan focused on skilled nursing goals, such as wound care monitoring or therapy support. Hospice support care is focused on comfort, dignity, and presence rather than medical intervention. Our aides work alongside the hospice nursing team but do not perform medical tasks. They are there to provide personal care, companionship, and steady help so the family and the person receiving care can focus on what matters in the time that remains.
Yes, and we take that seriously for hospice assignments especially. When you call, we ask about your parent's temperament, their history, what makes them comfortable, and what kind of presence tends to feel intrusive versus calming. We match based on that picture, not just on schedule availability. If the match does not feel right after the first visit, we talk about it and we adjust. Getting this right matters too much to leave it to chance.
We maintain backup coverage and will always contact you ahead of time if a scheduled aide cannot make it. We will never leave you without someone or simply send a stranger with no context. If a substitute is needed, we brief them on your family's situation and your parent's preferences before they arrive. You will know who is coming and when, and you will always have our direct number to call if anything feels off.
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Hospice Care near Norfolk
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Private Duty Aides — Norfolk, CT
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