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 One of the new rooms in the hospice |
‘We need support – and lots of money!’
Concert planned to raise funds for hospice struggling to provide care for terminally ill people
TWO women, we shall call them Margaret and Elizabeth, became close friends.
Margaret was terminally ill; Elizabeth visited her every day. Margaret was at home when she died, looking out at her garden, her family all with her. Elizabeth was there, too. She was there because she was a nurse from the Marie Curie Hospice and she had made it possible for Margaret to die at home.
It is not always possible, of course, but the name Marie Curie is the answer to many prayers in many ways.
In a quiet Hampstead street, tucked away from traffic, is the Marie Curie Hospice. To visit it is to be overwhelmed by its sense of peace, by the thoughtfulness that has gone into its design in order to help people who are terminally ill.
But it is struggling. Not enough money is being raised to fund it. It needs more – it needs, for instance, far more nurses to help patients to die at home – and there are a great many people out there devising ways of helping: there are sponsored runs, abseiling, parachute jumps, tea parties, even a five-day trek in Petra. And this weekend two distinguished musicians are joining in with an event they call Brahms and Tea. Stephen Kovacevich and Gemma Rosefield will play Brahms in the beautiful Hampstead Parish Church, local patisseries will provide the cream tea – a treat for all the senses.
With so much good work being done, why is there always a need for so much more? The shortfall is due, says fundraising manager Liz Allen, to a series of misconceptions.
“First, people think we are the North London Hospice, which we are not, and a lot of public money goes there. Then, because Marie Curie is a national organisation, everyone thinks ‘they’re rich, they can look after themselves’. And other people think we’re fine because we’re NHS-funded.”
The facts are these. The Hampstead hospice, one of ten in London, needs £4.2million a year to provide its caring service. It gets about half that from the NHS, another half million from the main Marie Curie Cancer Care. Fundraising in the community, appeals and gifts bring in about £1million. That leaves a shortfall of half a million. “We feel strongly,” says Liz Allen, “that we should be able to depend on local people. We are, after all, here for them. We feel we’re not getting to them. Yes, we raise a lot – but we spend a lot.”
They spend a lot in the best possible ways. The Hampstead hospice has the atmosphere of a quietly luxurious small hotel. Huge windows (a recent innovation) flood all the rooms with light. There are soft carpets everywhere, so there is no noise. “We couldn’t believe it,” says the daughter of one patient. “What a calm, restful place it is.”
Families are treated with extraordinary thoughtfulness. All the patients are terminally ill, and arrangements are made for their children, grandchildren and friends to spend as much time with them, in comfort, as they can. A visitors’ sitting-room is furnished like a home – there are comfortable sofas and armchairs, plants, books, toys for the children, a small kitchen, folding beds available for anyone who wants to stay the night.
“The assumption,” says Liz Allen, “is that the family is going to be here a great deal.”
Patients’ rooms are large and airy, many with windows overlooking the garden. “It’s all about dignity, comfort, privacy and independence,” she says. “And it’s about being positive. Which is why we have a gym and a hydrotherapy pool – a young lawyer who was a patient here until he died left a legacy to be spent on the pool.”
The hospice has open days so that the outside world can come in, and there is a devoted team of volunteers who help with art therapy, massage and aromatherapy. And in the canteen there is home-cooking good enough to tempt any flagging appetite.
“We want more people to come and see that this is not an intimidating place, but friendly. We want people to know about us. We need more supporters – and lots of money!”
RUTH GORB
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