Gary and Kim Bird on holiday in Australia earlier this year, visiting Gary’s daughter and grandchildren. Gary sadly passed away at his home in April this year, aged 48. © St Francis Hospice
The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation gave a grant of £20,000 towards the costs of the Hospice in 2007/08.
The Hospice of St Francis provides palliative care for people with life-limiting illnesses in West Hertfordshire and the Chiltern area of Buckinghamshire. They offer holistic care through a mixture of inpatient, day and home care services. They run support groups for patient’s families both during illness and post bereavement and have a specialist programme for children affected by bereavement.
This grant went towards the care costs of maintaining one of the beds in its inpatient unit where our multi-professional team care for 330 patients per year. In the last year they were delighted to open bed 11 in our inpatient unit.
“You understood the misery of my physical pain and weak emotional state, and sympathetically ameliorated and nourished my condition, physically, emotionally and spiritually.”
Jane Inpatient at St Francis Hospice, December 2007