My journey with Beaumond House Hospice Care started when I volunteered in the fundraising department in 2015/2016. The team was incredible and so welcoming! I went on to university to study medicine but a couple of years later, I had a personal experience with the hospice when my grandad was diagnosed with gastric cancer.
Sadly, my grandma had died only 10 months prior to his diagnosis so we were all dealing with grief and learning to live without her.
Following the months of my grandad being in hospital with multiple operations, it was agreed the cancer was not curable. I remember so clearly watching my dad on the phone with the palliative care consultant. I saw his shoulders relax in relief that finally, someone was looking at my grandad as a person and questioning what would be best for him. Family had always been important to grandad and he could not have coped at home on his own.
We felt so fortunate that Beaumond House had a bed available. Our visits with Grandad went from visits in a medicalised hospital environment where he struggled to hear, to being able to spend quality time together.
I was at university so came back at weekends to sit with him, but my family went every day to see him and do ‘normal’ things like watch the football! Grandad was also into his food. We all remember him asking for Bellinis, and the kitchen staff very kindly going to the shops to get them! We cannot thank the whole hospice team enough for their care of not only my grandad, but also us at this time.
I have always had an interest in holistic medicine, but this experience shaped my future career. During the COVID pandemic when my course was temporarily suspended, I worked as a Healthcare Assistant at a hospice to help provide additional support. During this period, the challenges of isolation and the prevalence of COVID had a significant impact on staffing levels and affected people's experiences of dying and being surrounded by their loved ones.
I worked alongside the most incredible and caring team, learning about what makes hospices and palliative care so special. Palliative medicine has the ability to make life-changing contributions to patients and their loved ones. I strongly believe that everyone deserves a ‘good death’.
The kindness and compassion shown to patients and their families, along with the impact of Beaumond House, further ignited my love of palliative care. Now, three years post-graduation, I am working as a doctor at a Marie Curie hospice in Edinburgh. I am not 100% sure what my future career will be but to this day I take the valuable lessons I learned from both working in the hospice, as well as the experience of being a family member of someone dying in the hospice.
I continue to support Beaumond Hospice from afar- recently completing the Edinburgh half for charity.
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