New L+M hospice unit seeks to provide peace and comfort for patients and families

The Day – Thursday, March 26, 2026
By John Penney

New London — Down a long sixth-floor corridor that passes through Lawrence + Memorial Hospital’s oncology unit are three rooms that for its patients are the last they’ll ever enter.

Those recently refurbished patient rooms, along with a renovated family room, comprise the hospital’s new dedicated hospice space where those at the end of their lives — along with their loved ones — are made comfortable by a team of nurses and other caregivers.

“The patients who come here are suffering symptoms that require aggressive management, like pain medications and IV therapy,” said Leslea Knisel, a veteran palliative care nurse and manager of palliative care for L+M and Westerly hospitals. “We wanted these rooms to be a place of peace and comfort.”

On Thursday, Knisel and a group of other hospital staffers held a dedication ceremony for the new unit inside the “blue” room — each of the three patient rooms has a shorthand color designation, including green and orange — which featured a cerulean paint scheme, local artwork and a window view of the Thames River. Wood slats, instead of normal hospital-grade tile, line the room’s floors.

“We wanted these rooms to reflect dignity and respect,” Knisel said. “And for them to also be a place where life can be celebrated.”

The renovation project had its seeds in a memorial ceremony Knisel attended about 18 months ago at Yale New Haven’s Saint Raphael Campus, which has its own hospice unit. Knisel recalled watching nurses, chaplains and other caregivers intoning the names of former patients and offering remembrances of their last days.

“It was the most moving and meaningful experience I’d ever seen,” Knisel said. “And I thought ‘Why can’t we bring this to L+M?’”

In the past, patients requiring “comfort measures only” care were tended at whatever bedside they might have been admitted to, with unit nurses providing end-of-life care and support.

“But now, those patients can be moved here where we have nurses with extra training,” Knisel said.

The creation of the new unit began in the fall and included transforming an office into a family room located just steps from the patient spaces. Like the patient rooms, the family area — it replaces one much farther away from the hospice unit — is designed for comfort, with wall art, chairs, a refrigerator and microwave.

“We wanted a place that’s close to their loved ones’ bedsides if they had to step out,” Knisel said.

Initially, Knisel reached out to the L+M Auxiliary, a group of volunteers who over the decades has helped raise donations for a host of hospital upgrades, including a recent refresh of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

But when hospital President Richard Lisitano got wind of Knisel’s plan, he insisted on the hospital footing the entire $120,000 room renovation bill.

The auxiliary chipped in $5,000 for the prints, paintings and pictures decorating rooms and hallways and were able to work with local artists to get donated pieces.

Kathy Greene, immediate past auxiliary president, said the project struck a particularly personal tone with members as one of their own, Lisa Giordano, died inside an L+M hospital room in 2024.

Lee Palombo, a professional photographer specializing in landscapes, had one of her shots framed inside the blue room. She said she hoped the photo, of an Old Saybrook dock extending out into Long Island Sound under a setting sun, passed on a sense of “peace, quiet and tranquility” to anyone in the room.

“For me, it shows that the end of a life, like the end of the dock, doesn’t really mean the end,” Palombo said.

While a patient’s time in a hospice room can vary depending on individual medical circumstances, the typical stay is between two to three days. Knisel estimated several dozen patients spent their last hours in those rooms since December.

“We really wanted to re-frame what is a very difficult situation for patients and families,” Knisel said. “These rooms are places where people can review someone’s life and remember when it was well, and those it touched.”

During Thursday’s ceremony inside the blue patient room, Catherine Olokodana, the hospital’s supervisor of spiritual care, blessed the hospice unit and “all who will serve within these walls.”

“May these rooms be places where fear gives way to peace, where suffering is met with mercy and where every life — in its final chapter — is honored as precious and worthy,” Olokodana said.

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