It was established by the Little Company of Mary to provide free-of-charge palliative care to the people of Wellington, Porirua and Kapiti.

Sister Margaret Lancaster, pictured above, helped establish Mary Potter Hospice 40 years ago. She remains a board member today.

She says setting up such a service wasn't without its challenges, with people's idea of dealing with dying to simply "put them in the corridor" or "out in the ground" and not talk about it.

The hospice began at Calvary Hospital in Wellington.

In 1988 the Little Company of Mary sold Calvary Hospital and gifted the Mary Potter Hospice to the people of Wellington as an independent non-sectarian charitable trust, the Mary Potter Foundation.

As part of the sale, the Sisters negotiated access to the hospital gardens and bought five houses on Florence Street.

However, there was little room for parking or further development, and some felt it was too close to the private hospital.

Fortunately, Ruth Gotlieb, a then-city councillor, found an "ideal site" in Mein St - a poorly used council park across the road from the hospital.

The sisters organised a land exchange with Wellington City Council to get the Mein St site. Construction on the new hospice started in December 1989 and it was officially opened in 1990.

Today services include the Inpatient Unit in Newtown and Day Hospices in Porirua and Kapiti.

Maintaining a community focus, Hospice services are provided wherever people are - at home, in aged care or in the Inpatient Unit in Newtown. Volunteers remain essential to the life and vibrancy of all Hospice services and connect the Hospice back to communities.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• marypotter.org.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

At times like these, philosophers are of limited use because when they have talked about dying they have tended to focus on what it means for the one who dies. Plato, for instance, called philosophy a preparation for death, while Epicurus told us we had nothing to fear from dying. But such thoughts are not much use to those who die suddenly. My father had seemed fit as a fiddle, but he was struck by a heart attack and died on the spot. The same happened to his brother and his brother-in-law, while his own father was killed instantly by a stroke. It is as though the Grim Reaper enjoys playing a cruel joke on those who look intently ahead. Those who prepare to meet him face-to-face are just as likely to find he sneaks up behind them and takes them unawares.

A much more useful philosophy would help us to prepare for the deaths of others. I have never been sure that philosophy does a good job of that. But perhaps a philosophical outlook can help us make sense of death when it comes close to us. Continue reading

Sources

• Julian Baggini in Aeon
• Image: U S Institute of Peace

Julian Baggini is a writer and founding editor of The Philosophers' Magazine.

The 33-year old was dying.

By the time his friends realised he was not joking, by the time paramedics navigated the stairs to the lecture theatre and by the time they got him to hospital, he was brain dead.

"They call it sudden adult death syndrome, where a seemingly perfectly fine young person drops dead," says his sister, Bronwen Fallens.

Eleven days later, Fallens and her mother made the decision to turn off his life support.

"We were lucky we got to be there. I held him in my arms as he passed and had his favourite music playing," she says.

The reactions of her friends to the death were varied, she says. Some rallied around her. Others made comments the 39-year-old says shocked and hurt her.

"Some people lose babies," one friend said.

"At least he got to 33."

Another friend compared the death to going through a divorce. Others said nothing at all.

"They're scared of catching it, your misery," Fallens says. "They think if they get too close to it, it will rub off on them. I ended up shedding the friends who couldn't understand."

Grief can be like having a mental illness, she says.

"I was in a world of misery. You're not yourself. Some people seem to think you should snap out of it and they judge you for grieving for so long."

When her father died with dementia a year later, aged 74, Fallens says she received an entirely different reaction. Some people didn't even send flowers or a card.

"It is as though you're not expected to be sad because he was old and sick and it was for the best, people say. But he was my father. I have lifelong memories of him from when I was a baby, long before he got sick." Continue reading

Sources

• Melissa Davey in Stuff
• Image: Tribework

Melissa Davey is a Sydney Morning Herald journalist