Hospices are homes or houses committed to the wellbeing of terminally ill patients and which began in 1900 in Ireland by a group of Christian nuns, and today there are more than 100 nationwide. Many of these are Christian based because it is seen as a substitute to euthanasia.
‘Hospice’ comes from the word ‘the hospitium’ which is a part of a monastery or nunnery where the nuns or monks would care for travellers, the ill and the destitute in Medieval England. The first identified indication to palliative care (alike to hospice care) can be linked back to the Greek philosopher Hippocrates in 460 BC when he is quoted to have saying, “To cure sometimes, to relieve often, and to comfort always.” Then again in 1996, palliative care was told to be, ‘a concept where there is a shift of emphasis from conventional care that focuses on quantity of life, towards a commitment to care which enhances the quality of life.’ In other words, it is care given to make the quality of life better for terminally ill patients, and the aim of palliative care is to stop or treat a disease as premature as can be and to support any patients who have any psychological, social or other problems linked to the disease or its treatment.
The modern hospice movement started in the year 1967 by the opening of St Christopher’s Hospice (now being an international movement) which began by the means of the woman Cicely Saunders, who was motivated by her job as a nurse and then a social worker, not solely to help with physical needs of the patients, but also spiritual and the emotional. And through her yearning to help people in pain she became a doctor.
The Essay on Child Care The Effect On Family Life
More and more families are putting their children into daycare every day. There are different reasons as to why they have to do this. The main reasons are that both parents have to work, or the child is in a single parent situation, and the parent has to work in order to have an income to buy basic needs. In order to pay the child care bill and the cost of enrolment fees, etc, parents will need to ...
Yet, these homes are not only for the elderly but also for children who have untreatable illnesses and facilities are made especially for them so that they have a chance for a happy and caring life in a safe environment, with rooms being available for siblings so that they may have a chance to be together through the pain.
The three main aims of any hospice are to relieve pain, to help patients and their family and friends to accept death, and to care for the needs of the family and friends of the dying. Through time, people have come to the conclusion that it is unnecessary for people to die in anguish, which is why hospices concentrate on pain relief as one of its main aims. The volunteers of the hospices consider that pain can be controlled and they offer the chance to talk about death or pray, though they do not force people to believe in Christianity if they do not wish to. Hospices are also there to assist people to manage with deaths before, during and after the person dies.
However, even though hospices are not Christian based alone, many Christians work for hospices because they see it as an alternative form to euthanasia and they believe in trying to relieve pain rather than giving up on life and on God, as well as assuring that they die with dignity and hope in the life after death. Also, they might because Jesus himself worked as a healer for people and lived his life hoping to bring people out of pain (for example the crippled woman and the paralysed man) and into the bright light of God and his teachings.
Christians are likely to form hospices because they see this as another way to be like Jesus and to follow his teachings on God’s world and what it should be like if they listen to him. For example, the local support in Cheltenham is Sue Ryder Care which aims to become the best in the field for neurological and palliative care, and the only way to do this is by the means of Social Services, Health Authorities, legacies, donations, fundraising and income from their shops. The types of care that they offer is not simply for the physical pain, but also the emotional as well – for example when a family member is about to or has indeed died from a terminal illness they will give bereavement counselling to family and friends so that they can heal from their lose. Spiritual support is also something that people sometimes ask for when mourn because they believe that it is not just what the person my physically need as far as support and care goes, but of the inner part of their minds as well. Though the death of so many people around them can cause people in hospices pain and upset them, they understand (if they are Christians) that there is life after death and it is a far better place than where people are now.
The Essay on The Pain of Death
Joe Henderson 8-29-97 The Pain of Death When I awoke one evening with voices in my head, it was about 3:00 am. I noticed that outside the sky was a reddish black, and there were voices that seemed to come from the street. I decided to take a look outside and see what was going on. As I stepped outside, I noticed a strange putrid odor that seemed to be a part of the wind. I stood there, not knowing ...
