Marie Curie Hospice, Newcastle opens new family suite
Press release published
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The Marie Curie Hospice, Newcastle unveiled a brand new family suite today (Friday 02 August), the first of its kind in the North East. The Lindisfarne suite is a purpose designed self contained area including a bedroom, en-suite bathroom, living area, kitchenette and garden, all for one family to spend vital time together. Marie Curie’s Director of Nursing, Dee Sissions cut a ribbon to officially open the suite at an event attended by hospice staff, volunteers, patients, relatives, and local supporters. Helen Forrow, Hospice Manager said: “We regularly have young families at the hospice and although we have facilities for relatives to stay in the same room as a loved one, it can be difficult to accommodate a number of people wanting to stay with one patient. “We developed the idea of a suite of rooms which were designed to cater for a family unit and offer them space, privacy and a ‘home from home’ feeling - something we know is very important to families when a loved one is ill. The Lindisfarne suite will help families maintain a sense of normality and allow us to provide a private, peaceful place suitable for a family to spend time together.” Local sports fanatic Richard Holmes recently passed away at the hospice following a six year battle with a brain tumour. His family were the first to benefit from the new facility. His mum Linda, a secondary school teacher, talked about how the new suite helped her family: “I was able to lie with Richie for four hours before he passed away. The suite gave the whole family the room to be together and to actually be physically close to Richie. It will be absolutely wonderful for other families to stay there.” The name Lindisfarne was voted for by staff, patients, relatives and volunteers at the hospice and was inspired by Lindisfarne Castle, a 16th-century castle located on Holy Island. The suite was created by converting two existing bedrooms at a cost of just over £65,000. The majority of the funds for the work came from The League of Friends with the remainder coming from supporters. -ENDS- |
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About Marie Curie
Marie Curie is the UK’s leading end of life care charity. Marie Curie provides free nursing care to people with a terminal illness, either in their own home or one of the charity’s nine hospices.
Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, it provided care to more than 35,000 terminally ill patients in the community and in its nine hospices last year and is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS.
Funding
Around 70 per cent of the charity’s income comes from the generous support of thousands of individuals, membership organisations and businesses, with the balance of our funds coming from the NHS.
Research
The charity provides core funding for three palliative care research facilities; the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit at University College London, the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Centre at the Wales Cancer Trials Unit (Cardiff University). The charity also supports palliative and end of life care research through its project grant funding streams, the Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Programme (administered by Cancer Research UK) and the Dimbleby Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Fund. Both research programmes aims to tackle the funding and knowledge gap in palliative and end of life care research, which in turn will benefit patients, families and carers.
The right to die in place of choice
Research shows around 63 per cent of people would like to die at home if they had a terminal illness, with a sizeable minority opting for hospice care. However, more than 50 per cent of cancer deaths still occur in hospital, the place people say they would least like to be. Since 2004 Marie Curie has been campaigning for more patients to be able to make the choice to be cared for and die in their place of choice.