Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-fmk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-23T16:34:32.250Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hope at the end of life: Making a case for hospice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2005

DENISE L. HAWTHORNE  and
NANCY J. YURKOVICH
DENISE L. HAWTHORNE
Affiliation:
Faculty of Health Sciences, Douglas College, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
NANCY J. YURKOVICH
Affiliation:
Community Advisory Council, Rotary Hospice House, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Hope is the anticipation of something better to come and an essential component of life. It is a complex notion that is fundamental to the promise of health care. Initially, hope is for cure or restoration of health but in terminal illness, when there is no longer the possibility of cure, hope rests in the knowledge and skill of the medical scientist to alter the course of disease and to prolong life. It is this expectation for renewed physical being that is the focus of every intervention. At the end of life, when science can do no more, hope endures, but the focus of hope changes. It becomes hope to find meaning in life, as it was lived, and in the time that remains. For most, however, the end of life unfolds in the scientific milieu of the hospital where the significance of redefining hope may not be considered, and many die without hope. The purpose of this article is to explore the meaning of hope, to highlight the necessity of redefining hope at the end of life, and to emphasize the importance of sanctuary in engendering hope through relationship. Hospice is proposed as a sanctuary for the final days, where the patient, family, and health professional discover a new meaning of hope through shared human experience.

Type
ESSAY/PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , December 2004 , pp. 415 - 417
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bolen, J. (1996). Close to the Bone: Life-Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning. New York: Scribner.
Hawthorne, D.L. & Yurkovich, N.J. (2002). Nursing as science: A critical question. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 34, 53–64.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, D.L. & Yurkovich, N.J. (2003). Human relationship: The forgotten dynamic in palliative care. Palliative and Supportive Care, 1, 261–266.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. (1979). Seven traits for designing our descendants. The Hastings Center Report, 9, 7–10.Google Scholar
Nouwen, H.J.M. (1994). Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
Nuland, S.B. (1994). How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Roy, D.J. (1999). Why we need poets in palliative care. Journal of Palliative Care, 15, 4–5.Google Scholar
Vanier, J. (1999). Becoming Human. London: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
Watson, J. (2003). Love and caring: Ethics of face and hand—An invitation to return to the heart and soul of nursing and our deep humanity. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 27, 197–202.Google Scholar