Jade Goody has gone into a hospice for palliative care and it is brilliant that she has done so. Having visited a number of hospices around the country, I can think of no better environment in whcih to consider and approach one’s death.
Hospices provide the best forms of palliative care for people who are dying… and their families. The holistic approach they take – always non-judgemental in terms of faith commitment – to human living and dying is remarkable. The person is taken seriously as someone who is not simply a ‘case’, or categorised by their illness, but is seen as a person with a mental, spiritual, physical and social context and life. The individual’s history is taken seriously and each person is treated with complete dignity.
Even the buildings are designed with the whole person in mind. Years ago, when I was a curate in Kendal (in the Lake District), our local hospice was 25 miles away in Lancaster. The building was shaped in such a way that if you were lying in a bed, you could see out of a floor to ceiling window and see greenery as well as sky.
Yet, as far as I can work it out, hospices receive very little (and sometimes no) financial support from the NHS. They all rely on donations from the public.
I am about to read Julian Barnes’ new book Nothing to be Frightened of – all about death, dying and arguing with God. I saw it in a bookshop in London yesterday and noted the line on the back that said something like: ‘I don’t believe in God, but I miss him’. I don’t know if Barnes is quoting someone else there, but death and its imminence does provoke the questions many of us push to the hinterland of the mind when life is OK and busy.
Jade Goody will get fantastic care in and through the hospice. They work in the community and in people’s homes, too. She will find herself cared for with dignity, love and genuine personal attention while the rest of us commend her and her family to God.
