St Joseph's Hospice, Hackney: A century of caring in the East End of London
Winslow M, Clark D
Observatory Publications - (2005)ISBN: 0954419235
Pages: 151
Price per book: £12.00
Delivery charges: UK - £3.00 Europe - £4.50 Rest of World - £8.00
St Joseph?s Hospice, based in Hackney in the East End of London, has a special importance within the global history of hospice and palliative care. It is the oldest hospice in England to have remained within its founding framework of governance, that of the Religious Sisters of Charity. It serves a community characterised by a long history of material poverty and deprivation as well as ethnic and cultural diversity. It provided the vital context for the early work of Cicely Saunders, whose subsequent activity was to be so consequential for the creation of the whole hospice movement. It has been the training ground for several cohorts of doctors, nurses and others who have gone on to practise in hospice and palliative care settings all over the world. Perhaps most importantly of all, it demonstrates to us how a hospice organisation can expand and change over time, adapting to altered circumstances, whilst constantly returning to its original mission and purpose and remaining rooted within its local community. For all these reasons, the history of St Joseph?s is both fascinating and important.
This book is not simply a work for specialists in palliative care. It can be read by anyone with an interest in local communities and how they rally round a particular cause. It should interest those who want to know more about how the care of dying people has been changing in Britain over the past 100 years. It has something to say about the role of religious orders in these matters and much to tell us about relations within the caring professions and how these have been transforming over time. There is also insight here into the role of charitable and voluntary organisations and how they adapt to changing circumstances. Above all, this book should be of interest to the many people whose lives have been touched in some way by St Joseph?s Hospice, Hackney - as Sisters, staff, volunteers, fundraisers, and most of all as members of families and a local community that the hospice has served in the years since those early endeavours, that first began in January 1905.
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