Pray with the Pope: Quality of Life to the End

Dr Cicely Saunders, a pioneer in the management of palliative care.
Intention: Let us pray that the sick who are in the final stages of life, and their families, receive the necessary medical and human care and accompaniment.
The intention for February — coinciding with the World Day for the Sick on February 11 — reminds me of the foundress of the Hospice Movement, Cicely Saunders (1918-2005). If I may risk a little name-dropping, I met Dr Saunders in 1969 at the pioneering hospice that she had recently set up in South London.
St Christopher’s Hospice for the terminally ill was then a new concept in secular medicine, although many of the ideas which Dr Saunders brought to it were inspired by her work at a hospice run by the Sisters of Charity, St Joseph’s. Indeed, as a committed evangelical Anglican, she wondered whether a hospice for the dying would be able to function at all without some kind of Christian community running it.
In the end she opted for an interdenominational institution in partnership with the state, and her model has flourished. My work at St Christopher’s for a few weeks in 1969 marked me. It was an inspiring place of hope and comfort for the patients and of support for their relatives and friends.
Dr Saunders, who was very much the “grande dame” of the institution, brought more than just a Christian-inspired bedside manner to the new hospice. She was a professional pain-manager and had done serious research in pain-control at St Joseph’s. Her notion of “total pain” encompassed all the dimensions of pain — physical, emotional, social and spiritual.
Keeping pain away
She insisted that patients should remain as pain-free as possible all the time, rather than being subjected to the awful rollercoaster ride caused by receiving fresh dosages only when the pain returned. “Constant pain needs constant control” was her common-sense watchword. In many cases, the regime of constant control eventually reduced the need for painkilling drugs.
Dr Saunders found that once patients understand that they are assured of freedom from pain, this has a very positive effect on their emotional and spiritual life. Freed from the distressing physical and emotional rollercoaster, a patient can recover the energy and sense of purpose to use the final period of their life constructively.
One of my most vivid personal memories was of a woman who had found the strength to console her children and other relatives who were struggling with the sadness of her terminal illness. It was an awesome manifestation of spiritual power and an astonishing role-reversal which was made possible by the medical and emotional support she was receiving.
Dr Saunders had absolutely no time for the idea that the risk of addiction to the painkillers was an issue in pain management. She once said that she had never come across intractable pain, although she had come across some intractable doctors!
She also prescribed a whole range of medicines to handle other symptoms, such as bedsores, nausea, depression, constipation, and breathlessness. She also abolished visiting hours, welcoming visitors at any time.
Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, her painter-husband, produced some wonderful artworks for the hospice, and I remember these and the whole thoughtfully conceived environment as symbolising the total care that was the underlying idea of St Christopher’s.
We pray that Dr Saunders’ vision and inspiration may live on in the Church and in the medical profession.
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