Hospice care in eastern Europe

Abstract

Solzhenitsyn in Cancer ward, the only kindness that could count on was from medical staff or their fellow patients. Death usually came as a merciful release. In 1976, the Archbishops' synod: How to express love and practise compassion for suffering patients inspired Halina Bortnowska and a group of parishioners of t he . Lord's Ark Church, in Nowa Huta Binczyce, southern Poland, to establish a team of volunteers who cared for cancer dying in an infectious-disease ward. Then, in 1978, Dame Cecily Saunders, the founder of St Christopher's Hospice, London, UK, visited Krakow; she met volunteers, shared the concept of hospice care, and taught the doctors at Krakow Oncological Hospital to be aware of the value of oral morphine in controlling pain. Thus, the independent hospice movement took root in Poland. It was characterised by holistic home-care and close links with patients' families. In 1987, a pain clinic and a palliative-care service was started within the oncology department of the Przemienienia Panskiego hospital, Poznan. These new services were based on principles developed in Milan, Italy, by Vittorio Ventafridda. The Poznan centre was then extended to include seven inpatient beds. It subsequently evolved into the palliative care department of the University Medical Academy, and developed important links with Sir Michael Sobell House, Oxford, U K a WHO collaborating centre, and the International School for Cancer Care. There followed, in Poland, the establishment of palliative-medicine departments in Gdansk and Bydgoszcz, and palliative-care services in university cities such as Bialystok, Katowice, Krakow, Lodz, Lublin, Warsaw, Leaflet published by the Belarussian Children's Hospice