The Columbarium: Queen of Hospice
The Columbarium is a free, weekly newsletter where the history of death and dying meets practical advice about the same. Enjoy this issue from the archive—and if you like it, consider signing up!
For much of human history—in the Western tradition, at least—dying sucked.
I mean, it still sucks, but more existentially. Back then, it also sucked physically. If a painful terminal disease was ravaging your body, doctors shrugged their shoulders and said there was nothing they could do. Then they’d leave you to suffer until the Reaper showed up with his merciful scythe.
Enter Dame Cicely Saunders.
She didn’t start out a Dame, of course. Born in 1918, Cicely was a smartypants who studied Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at Oxford—but when World War II rolled around, she decided to train as a nurse. Then, after a back injury, she became a social worker. (If you think she’s done with her education, you just wait.)
In 1948, she began caring for a Polish-Jewish refugee named David Tasma, who was dying of cancer and had no friends or relatives in England. Together they dreamed of creating a place where the dying could end their lives in peace—and when Tasma died, he left her £500 to make it happen.
After consulting with other friends and mentors in the medical field, Cicely decided the best way to achieve her goal was to become a doctor. Back to school! She qualified as a doctor in 1958, and the next year she took a research scholarship to study pain management in terminal patients.
Yeah, that’s right. Cicely Saunders was somehow the first person to realize that giving regular, constant doses of pain medication to the dying might relieve their emotional distress as well as their physical distress. A lot easier to face the end and say goodbye when you’re not in agony!
After years of work, she opened St. Christopher’s Hospice in 1967—the first modern hospice facility. In addition to her pain management innovations, she made bold moves at her facility such as letting patients’ families stay with them and having nice gardens. You know, generally making end-of-life care as pleasant as possible.
While revolutionizing hospice and palliative care as we know it, she got a zillion awards and honorary degrees, and Queen Elizabeth II made her a Dame in 1980. That same year—when she was 61—she married a painter named Marian Bohusz-Szyszko and they lived happily ever after, until he died comfortably at St. Christopher’s in 1995, and she followed suit a decade later.
What a badass.
If a loved one has died peacefully in hospice care, you have Dame Cicely Saunders to thank. And hospice truly can provide a better end-of-life experience. CaringInfo.org is a great resource if you want to learn more. And of course, I have some info about hospice on the dead parents website, too.
Sources: The BMJ, Cicely Saunders International, St. Christopher’s, Acton Institute