Biography of Nancy Hinds, R.N., Founder

Nancy Hinds was called to serve.  Born Nancy Bochin in Cleveland Ohio.  Nancy was aware from early childhood that she wanted to become a nurse and care for people.  Finding her purpose early in life has allowed Nancy to spend her life fulfilling this dream by serving others.

Nancy studied nursing at St. John’s College in Cleveland, Ohio.  It was there that she became interested in missionary work.  “I knew I had a burning desire and when I heard about missionary work, I knew this is what I needed to do,” Nancy says.  After graduation she worked for more than a year at Cleveland Clinic Hospital in the intensive care unit.  While employed at the hospital she saved enough money to pay for her first mission to the West Indies.  Thus, at the age of 23, Nancy Hinds began her journey as a missionary nurse.

She worked in the West Indies for one year as a surgical nurse and she also gave nursing instructions to native students.  This experience convinced Nancy that she wanted to continue missionary work.  “It was a shock to me that on a small island there was an enormity of wealth on one side and poverty on the other,” Nancy says.  “The people were wonderful to me, and I was positive that I wanted to do missionary work after this experience.”

In the late 1960’s Nancy went to New York to sign up with the Catholic Medical Mission board for a four-year contract in Vietnam where the war was raging.  The Board requested that she go to Nigeria, West Africa for one year.  Volunteers were urgently needed there due to the Biafran war.  So, Nancy went to Nigeria as part of an emergency relief team.  This assignment threw her into the middle of a war zone in Nigeria.  “There were machine guns everywhere and soldiers were always around,” Nancy says.  “The soldiers got the word ‘missionary’ and ‘mercenary’ mixed up, they used to take us out of our vehicles and search us.  To them we were white so we were a possible threat.”  Nancy’s work in Nigeria was with malnourished children and she remembers the quiet sadness of the village when the children were sick beyond crying.  “The emotion I remember feeling was outrage,” Nancy says.  “I felt there was no such thing as a just war.  How do you justify war when the victims have no decision?”

In 1969, during her time in Nigeria, Nancy met Godfrey Hinds (known to the locals as the ‘white doctor’).  Godfrey was from Ireland, and had been working as a missionary doctor for 20 years.  “We were thrown into difficult situations together and always worked under extreme conditions,” Nancy says.  “Everything was so true, there was such a pureness in our relationship.”  After working in Africa for 21 years Godfrey was going to take a leave and return to Ireland.  When Nancy’s tour in Africa was finished, she reunited with Godfrey in Ireland, and they were married at the Convent of the Medical Missionaries of Mary before 21 priests and 17 nuns. Bound by a union of love and service Nancy and Godfrey continued in their foreign missionary work.

When their first born son Sean was six weeks old, the Hinds set out for Uganda in East Africa to take up a position with the Medical Missionaries of Mary at Kitovu Hospital near Masaka.  One year later, the regime of Idi Amin became intolerable and an opposition army was formed with the support of Tanzania.  The hospital in Kitobu was right in the path of the war.  Nancy at this time was pregnant with their second child.  She did not want to leave, even though she was in the path of the conflict.  When the bombs came so close that pieces of ceiling were falling on the bed of their 18-month-old son Sean, Nancy now 8 months pregnant with son Conor was convinced to leave Uganda.

The Peace Corps, who were transporting volunteers into the Entebbe airport, evacuated Nancy and Sean.  Godfrey stayed behind to add some measure of protection for the remaining missionary sisters.  Nancy said goodbye to Godfrey feeling as if she would never be seeing her beloved husband again. 

Before leaving Uganda, Nancy needed to find a safe place to hide the travelers’ cheques she had saved for the journey.  She sewed the cheques inside of son Sean’s diaper, cringing every time the soldiers took Sean at roadblock searches.  Nancy and Sean made it safely back to Belfast, Ireland, travelers cheques and all. 

Expecting to deliver her second child Conor while in Belfast Nancy faced terrible violence from the Belfast uprising of 1972. Back in Cleveland, Ohio, Nancy’s worried parents wired her money to return to the United States to deliver her child.  Nancy decided it was best to return to America and recalls that she was fortunate to be allowed on the plane. The airline did not ask her how far along she was in her pregnancy, if they had, by regulation, she would not have been allowed to board.

Fortunately, Godfrey managed to get out of Uganda when they evacuated the hospital to join his wife and son in Cleveland, just in time to see son Conor born.  After the birth of Conor, the Hinds tried to settle into a “normal” life with Godfrey accepting a position in Bray, County Wicklaw, Ireland.  The work seemed mild and routine compared to Godfrey’s previous works in bush camps throughout third world countries.  Craving something with more purpose and need, Godfrey accepted a position in Canada.

In Canada, Godfrey would be the only physician for a 1,100-mile radius; the weather was harsh and cold.  Nancy gave birth to their third son Patrick, and the Hinds decided to return to warmer Northern Ireland to put down roots once again.  Expecting a safe haven for their family, the Hinds soon found themselves threatened by Irish terrorist bombings in the name of religion.

Soon after moving back to Ireland, Nancy was called back to Ohio to be with her mother who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Her mother had surgery and began chemotherapy treatments when Nancy returned to Ireland to be with her family.  Back in Ireland, Nancy noticed Godfrey seemed tired, medical tests revealed Godfrey had a rare form of cancer and there was nothing medical science could do to save him.   Nancy’s parents flew to Ireland to support their daughter in her time of need.  Godfrey died in Ireland in March 1977, after only a few short months, Nancy’s mother while still in Ireland died from complications of her own cancer.  She was buried close to Godfrey.

Nancy’s sense of loss was tremendous.  She put her trust in God as she faced life with her three little boys all under five.  She remained in Ireland, a struggling young widow with three small children.  She focused on her service of caring for the severely handicapped and terminally ill patients in her Ireland home.  After three years on her own in Ireland, she decided to move to Fresno, California to be near her father and brother.

In Fresno, Nancy worked as an oncology nurse for St. Agnes Medical Center, but realized after only a few months that her sons deserved more parenting than they were receiving.  “I wanted to be with my children more.  I was in a mode where I wanted to see them off, and I wanted to be there when they got home,” Nancy says.  “I wanted to support them because they were missing their father.”  So, with this mindset Nancy returned to doing what she knew best, caring for the terminally ill in her home.  “I also knew that I had something to offer people.  I feel I can relate to people because I have some sense of what they are experiencing,” Nancy said.

Nancy’s first hospice home on Simpson, in Fresno, had a four patient capacity.  Open from 1981 until 1985, the home served 72 patients as well as their families.  The neighbors were welcoming and kind to this neighborhood hospice home, leaving baskets of fruit and vegetables on the porch, and even offering to help lift and move patients for Nancy.  Suddenly, unexpectedly, The Department of Health closed down the Simpson home for not having a license to operate.  No such license had ever existed in the State of California. 

Legislation had to be found that would allow for quality, in-home, end-of-life, hospice care.  It took over a year to find this legislation and Nancy at last had a license to operate.  During her almost two year fight to find legislation, in Sacramento, Nancy was forced to sell the Simpson house, take a supervisor job, and move the boys and herself into her father’s house. She never gave up believing that the right legislation would be found.

In 1987 the second Hinds Hospice home was opened after Nancy came across a home for sale that had extra wide, gurney friendly hallways, a prime location, and a seller who was willing to wait for her to find financing for the down payment.  Believing in this new house so strongly Nancy prayed, “help me find the way to make this happen,” and the Twain house did happen.  A phenomenon Nancy’s staff today refers to as “the Nancy factor.”  Whenever the unobtainable, unimaginable, or unexplainable happens, Hinds Hospice friends and family credit “the Nancy factor.”

Today Nancy Hinds has grown Hinds Hospice to include outpatient care in the three central California counties of Fresno, Madera, and Merced.  Nancy’s own father, Hal Bochin, was the first outpatient of Hinds Hospice of Fresno. Hinds has a Pediatric Hospice Program to support families with terminally ill children and training of staff at Children’s Hospital of Central California; an Angel Babies Program that provides grief support to families who have a pregnancy or an infant diagnosed with a life limiting condition; a Center for Grief and Loss that provides individual and support group grief counseling for 13 months after a loss; Multicultural Outreach offering a comprehensive program to the Spanish and Hmong populations; Physician Education that provides residents and medical students from the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Davis formal hands-on training in end-of-life care; Prison Hospice that educates and trains life inmates to provide hospice care for fellow life inmates and Thrift Stores that provide discounted items to those in need in the communities served by Hinds Hospice.

Nancy’s uphill struggle to combine the vocations of motherhood and nursing has culminated in an inspiring model of what terminal end-of-life care, in a home setting, should be.  Former board member and registered nurse Lucia Thornton says of Nancy Hinds, “She’s probably the closest thing to Mother Teresa that the Valley has seen.  What she does is from the heart.  She transforms the lives of co-workers, patients, and their families.  What Nancy appeals to in us is a need to connect with a higher purpose and meaning in our lives.”