Hospice Support Care in Portland, 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 late on a Tuesday, standing in the kitchen on Brownstone Avenue, and everything you thought you understood about what comes next suddenly felt unclear. The nurse was kind, but she had three other families to reach that night, and the questions you didn’t think to ask kept coming after you hung up. Someone still needed to be in that house overnight. Someone still needed to help with the small things, the turning, the water, the quiet company when you had to go home and sleep. That’s the gap we fill.
We work alongside hospice nurses, not instead of them. Our aides come in for the hours the hospice team isn’t there, keeping your parent comfortable, watching for changes, and making sure you don’t have to be in two places at once. Portland families have been calling us when they realize that what hospice provides and what’s actually needed around the clock are two different things.
Hospice Support Care means having a trained aide present in the home during the hours when the hospice nurse or social worker isn’t there, which is most of the day and all of the night. Our aides help with comfort, positioning, personal hygiene, light meals if the person can eat, and the kind of steady, quiet presence that makes a difference when someone is scared or restless. They also watch for changes and know when to call you or the hospice team.
For Portland families, we often start care right after a transition from Middlesex Hospital, when someone has come home under a hospice plan and the family is still finding their footing. The first few days at home are the hardest. There’s equipment to figure out, medication schedules to understand, and a person who needs attention around the clock while you’re also trying to hold down a job and take care of your own family. Our aides step in so that you can sit with your parent rather than manage logistics.
Day-to-day, this can look like morning help with bathing and getting settled, afternoon visits for company and meals, or overnight stays so a spouse can finally sleep. We work in all areas of Portland, and we build the schedule around what your family actually needs, not a preset package. Because we were founded by a working nurse, our aides understand the clinical picture of end-of-life care and know how to communicate with the hospice team in a way that keeps everyone coordinated.
Nurse-founded
Our agency was started by a working nurse who saw firsthand what families navigating end-of-life care at home actually needed: someone who understands what a hospice nurse is doing and can work alongside that process without creating confusion or gaps.
Built for this service specifically
We brief every aide before they start a hospice assignment. They know the diagnosis, the care goals, the family’s preferences, and what the hospice team has already set in motion. We don’t send someone in cold and hope for the best.
We pick up the phone
When something changes at two in the morning, you shouldn’t be leaving a voicemail. We stay reachable because hospice situations don’t follow business hours, and we know a question that goes unanswered at night can turn into a crisis by morning.
We know Portland and Middlesex County
We understand the discharge process at Middlesex Hospital, the geography of this area, and what Portland families are working with. We’re not routing calls through a distant call center. We’re local, and that shows in how we respond.
How it works
You tell us what’s happening. No forms, no intake questionnaire, no pressure. We ask a few questions to understand the situation and give you honest information about what we can do and when.
For hospice support specifically, we don’t just assign whoever is available. We look at experience with end-of-life care, personality, and the specific needs you’ve described, because the right fit matters enormously at this stage.
For Portland families who are in an urgent situation, same-day starts are possible. We know that in hospice care, timing isn’t a preference, it’s often a necessity.
You’ll hear from us regularly. If something changes with your parent’s condition or the care plan, you call us and we respond. You’re never left trying to figure out the next step alone.
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, our aide arrives at the agreed time and picks up wherever the night left off. That might mean helping with a morning routine, making sure medications are at hand, sitting with your parent while you step out, or just being a calm presence in the room. In the evening, it often means helping settle someone for the night and staying through the overnight hours if that's what's needed. We follow the person's pace, not a checklist.
We can often have someone in place the same day a discharge happens, or by the following morning at the latest. If you know a discharge is coming, calling us a day ahead makes everything smoother. We've coordinated directly with families leaving Middlesex Hospital many times and know how to work around the timing of those transitions. Don't wait until you're home with no support in place to reach out.
Medicare's hospice benefit covers the hospice nurse, social worker, chaplain, and certain medications, but it does not cover a private aide who is present in the home outside of those visits. That's the gap we fill, and it's a private-pay service. Some long-term care insurance policies do cover this kind of support, so it's worth checking your policy. We're happy to provide documentation if your insurance company needs it.
A home health aide typically comes in for a set number of skilled-care visits covered by Medicare or insurance, focused on specific medical tasks. Our hospice support aides are non-medical, but they're trained to work within an end-of-life care environment and to complement what the hospice clinical team is already doing. The biggest difference in practice is presence: our aides can stay for extended hours or overnight, which a home health aide visit does not cover. We're the layer of support that's there when the nurses have gone home.
Yes, and we take that seriously. We ask about your parent's temperament, preferences, history, and what kind of presence tends to make them feel at ease. For hospice care in particular, the relationship between aide and patient matters more than in almost any other service. If the first match doesn't feel right, we'll find someone who does. This isn't a situation where we ask you to just make it work.
We keep a backup plan in place from the start, not as an afterthought. If your regular aide is sick or has an emergency, we call you and have a replacement ready, someone we've already briefed on your parent's situation. You won't be scrambling at six in the morning trying to figure out what to do. We consider continuity a basic part of the service, not a bonus.
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Hospice Care near Portland
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Private Duty Aides — Portland, CT
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