Busting the fear and the myths that hang on the word hospice
Three exciting spaces are poised to become new venues for the Festival of Chichester next year as St Wilfrid’s Hospice aims to show the world just how bright, light and welcoming the hospice actually is.
Hospice chief executive Lois Howell is offering the three areas to people organising events for next year’s festival (mid-June to mid-July). She said she wanted people to realise that the hospice really isn’t a dark and gloomy place with a one-way door. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Lois said she would love to hear from anyone keen to offer music, performance or perhaps exhibitions within the hospice. The three available areas are the Living Well Centre; a beautiful courtyard area; and the café/reception area. Capacity for each would depend on the configuration and the seating required, but could be around 100. There are also corridor walls which would be excellent as further exhibition space, she said.
“We would like to offer these spaces for exhibitions or smallish performances. They don't have to be around the issues usually associated with the hospice but it would be a great venue if you were wanting to explore issues around death and dying and grief but equally these would be wonderful places to have a celebration of life. We are open to anybody.
“There are so many myths surrounding the word hospice and we would love to bust them. People think that the building will be dark and gloomy and somewhere people only go at the end of their life, but we are not that at all. We are warm and bright and light and welcoming, a place where you find joy and where you hear laughter within minutes.
“And it's very important that people understand that so much of hospice care is delivered outside these walls. About 90 per cent of what we do is not delivered at the hospice.
“So really we want to get people in through the door to help dispel the fears and the misconceptions about what hospices actually are.
“It's a bit like making a will. Lots of people don't want to make a will because they think that they will be hastening their death if they do so. People don't like to face what hospices are until they need them, and I think that's a great shame. I think you can find so much comfort and reassurance by visiting, and you can dispel so much fear if you get to know what a hospice really is.
“When we are talking about death and dying we have got so many euphemisms. We don't have such a great understanding of what it is. It all happens behind closed doors or it's just what we see portrayed on film or TV. People think that it always has to be painful. The debate around assisted dying hasn't helped. So many people think that there are only two options, either assisted dying or a painful undignified death. We want to show that a really well-supported dignified death is absolutely perfectly possible.”
And that’s all part of the Living Well concept – physiotherapy, holistic therapy and breathe- well support is part of it all: “It is all about living well.”
The Living Well Centre would be a great venue; it opens onto a beautiful internal courtyard which would be perfect for sculpture or other art or also performance and music with the option of retreating into the Living Well Centre if the weather turns bad.
“We have also got some nice corridors that would lend themselves to the display of art. We've also got the cafe and reception areas which could also be beautiful for exhibitions or performances.”
The address is Walton Lane, Bosham, PO18 8QB, and Lois would be delighted to discuss possibilities with anyone. The exact numbers that these spaces could accommodate would need to be worked out in discussion. Any events would be carefully arranged so that there would be no intrusion on the privacy of patients.
Lois is thinking particularly about evening and weekend use: “And it would be lovely if we could do some fund-raising, either renting the space or sharing the ticket sales or perhaps having a collection. But really our main driver in this is wanting to get people to feel comfortable with the idea of a hospice and to see what a warm and welcoming place we are.
“We have got car parking on site or we are a ten-minute walk from Bosham station.”
The hospice catchment area covers parts of West Sussex and Hampshire. The hospice supports people from Emsworth to Arundel, including Chichester and Bognor, and the area stretching from the coast north to Midhurst.