Mother language matters when people die – reflections of a hospice nurse
Agata Czerwińska, Dorothy House Specialist Nurse, has been practising palliative care for 25 years — initially in her home country of Poland, and later in the UK.
Over the years, as a foreign healthcare professional delivering direct palliative care in the UK, she has observed how important it is for dying people to communicate in their mother tongue at the end of their lives. Here are her moving reflections.
Doctors and death: A Dose of Grief
According to research, nearly 80% of doctors have experienced a distressing patient event in the last year, and many go on to suffer from depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Two Melbourne medical students, share how unprepared they felt to deal with the inevitable deaths of patients and how they are tackling this important issue.
Is death really taboo?
Sue Brayne has an MA in the Rhetoric and Rituals of Death and is an end-of-life researcher and she is the author of The D-Word: talking about dying.
In this blog for Part of Life, Sue explains how her work with the Death Café movement has led her to believe that talking about death is no longer the taboo it once was, but what we lack is the understanding of how to talk about death and dying.
Kicking the Bucket – A festival of living and dying
Liz Rothschild set up the Kicking the Bucket Festival in 2012. Working as a celebrant and burial ground manager, she realised that it was essential to talk with people before a bereavement in order for people to feel able to ask for what they really need. Here, Liz tells us about why she started the festival, what it involves, and how it helps to destigmatise the taboo subject of death and dying.
Landmark Death Literacy research to shape local hospice end of life care
Landmark Dorothy House Death Literacy research to shape local end of life care.
What matters to you?
BSW Junior Doctor, Eve Barnes, shares her perspectives on the What Matters to You movement and the importance of signing the charter ahead of What Matters to You Day on 9th June, 2023.
End of life care and learning disabilities
People with a learning disability and autistic people, who die earlier than the rest of the population face little or no end-of-life care planning. Lynnette Glass, BSW LeDeR area coordinator writes about their ambition to change this inequality.
In conversation with Kathryn Mannix
Wayne de Leeuw, ex-palliative care nurse and CEO of Dorothy House Hospice, interviews writer, speaker and palliative care specialist, Kathryn Mannix.
Death is a dirty word
Like birth, it is something that unites us all, yet death has become a dirty word. Part of Life is here to change that.