5th District Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty was in Danbury Friday to celebrate a Medicare expansion that she says will allow patients to gain access to hospice services while continuing to undergo treatment.  She discussed the expansion at Regional Hospice and Home Care of Western Connecticut.  It's one of only 140 hospice centers nationwide, and the only one in Connecticut, to be chosen to be part of this initiative.  Esty says the facility was selected from 6,000 applicants to be part of this initiative.

Regional Hospice is also one of only 70 facilities across the country that will be accepting patients and participating in the program for the full five year pilot program.

Medicare enacted a hospice benefit in the 1980s for 180 days of hospice care, but it was with a requirement that a hospice patient couldn't also be receiving active treatment.  Esty says chemo and radiation therapy for example, was even more grueling and brutal than it is today. She called it a horrible choice for families and patients of getting the support of hospice around end of life and giving up all treatment, or continuing treatment without support services.  Psychologically and emotionally, Esty says that's not acceptable.

Esty says there are more frequent medical discoveries and a lot of interest by people who are very sick, that something could transform their chances of survival.