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“We cannot believe the care, understanding, love that is outpouring… you provide a positive light in a time of sadness.”

Peter Smith

Your Community Hospice

Suncoast Hospice staff and volunteers are honored to answer the call of our founders' early mission. The Hospice was born out of the vision of an exceptional group of people who realized the value of hospice care and wanted it for their families and neighbors. In 1977 they created a small, all-volunteer organization. Today, their vision and mission remain the cornerstones of our work and organizational soul.

Suncoast Hospice is the nation's largest not-for-profit, community-based provider of hospice and palliative care. The Hospice provides care for tens of thousands of people annually, and leads innovative service delivery, social change advocacy, technology development and other end-of-life initiatives.

Our goal is to help each person in our community find quality of life and live each day with meaning and purpose. Toward that goal, we are constantly adding new programs and services to meet changing needs of our community.


Three decades of serving you

Significant milestones in the history of Suncoast Hospice

  • 1977 - Elisabeth Kubler Ross Hospice established with 50 volunteers
  • 1981 - Official state license granted and 40 patients are served that year, the first year Florida grants hospice licenses
  • 1982 - Becomes Hospice Care, Inc.
  • 1983 - The Hospice Foundation is established
  • 1988 - First community service center opens in Largo
  • 1991 - Becomes The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, Inc.
  • 1992 - Suncoast Hospice grows to 600 volunteers and 345 employees who serve 600 patients
  • 1994 - Hospice House Woodside, opens in Pinellas Park
  • 2000 - The North Pinellas community service center opens in Palm Harbor
  • 2004 - Original mid-Pinellas community service center relocates to new Clearwater location
  • 2006 - A new South Pinellas community service center opens in St. Petersburg. State approves establishing hospice residence in Palm Harbor. The Hospice grows to 3,000 volunteers and 1,250 employees who serve 2,400 patients a day.
    • Patients served 17,000
    • Lives touched 200,000
    • Volunteer hours 266,753
    • $11.5 million of uncompensated care provided for our community
  • 2009 - Suncoast Hospice shortens its name from The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast.
  • 2009 - Suncoast Hospice House Brookside opens in Palm Harbor