Birthday quote 22nd June

Cicely Saunders

Dame Cicely Mary Saunders (OM DBE FRCS FRCP FRCN) was an English Anglican nurse, social worker, physician and writer, involved with many international universities. She is best known for her role in the birth of the hospice movement, emphasising the importance of palliative care in modern medicine.

Saunders originally set out in 1938 to study politics, philosophy, and economics but in 1940, she decided to become a nurse and trained at Nightingale School of Nursing based at St Thomas's Hospital from 1940-44. Returning to St Anne's College after a back injury in 1944, she took a BA in 1945, qualifying as a medical social worker in 1947 and eventually trained as a doctor at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. In 1952, she began working at St Joseph's Hospice. By 1960, she had already decided to set up her own hospice, serving cancer patients.

Saunders claimed that after 11 years of thinking about the project, she had drawn up a comprehensive plan and sought finance. She succeeded in engaging the support of Albertine Winner, the deputy chief medical officer at the Ministry of Health at the time. In 1965, Cicely Saunders was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1967, St Christopher's Hospice, the world's first purpose-built hospice, was established. The hospice was founded on the principles of combining teaching and clinical research, expert pain and symptom relief with holistic care to meet the physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs of its patients and those of their family and friends. It was a place where patients could garden, write, talk – and get their hair done. There was always, Saunders would emphasize, so much more to be done, and she worked in this spirit as its medical director from 1967, and then, from 1985, as its chairperson, a post she occupied until 2000.

In 2002, Saunders co-founded a new charitable organisation, Cicely Saunders International. She was the founding trustee and president. The charity's mission is to promote research to improve the care and treatment of all patients with progressive illness and to make high-quality palliative care available to everyone who needs it – hospice, hospital or home. The charity has co-created the world's first purpose built institute of palliative care – the Cicely Saunders Institute.

Saunders died of cancer at age 87 in 2005, at St. Christopher's Hospice, the hospice she had founded.

Born on the 22nd June 1918 in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England
Died on the 14 July 2005 in South London, England, UK

Suffering is only intolerable when nobody cares. One continually sees that faith in God and his care is made infinitely easier by faith in someone who has shown kindness and sympathy.

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