To the editor:

This week, during National Nurses Week, we would like to specially recognize the tremendous contributions that hospice nurses make to this community.

Our nurses, highly trained in symptom management and palliative as opposed to curative treatment, are committed advocates for dignity, compassion and comfort at the end of life.

For more than 32 years, Hospice of Kitsap County nurses have lived up to the Nightingale Pledge and sought to elevate the standards of their profession. While we appreciate our nursing staff every day, we would like to take this opportunity to publicly recognize all they do.

Each year our nurses provide more than 45,000 hours of patient care to people in our community coping with a life — limiting illness. Their compassion and respect for the needs of the terminally ill are without peer, and we commend and thank them for their dedication.

JIM PAGE, PRESIDENT

Board of Trustees

Hospice of Kitsap County