In a moment of madness I thought it would be a good idea to walk 5 miles around Bristol in the middle of the night. On the 12th July my best friend, Jane, and I are doing the Midnight Walk in aid of St. Peters Hospice.
This is Bristol’s first and only hospice for adults suffering from life limiting conditions. The original concept began in 1978 with the appointment of a community nurse, with another 4 in post by the end of that year.
St. Peter’s Lodge opened in Knowle in 1980 for inpatients with 8 beds. I worked there from 1984 to 1985 before I started my nurse training. That year was invaluable to my future career, I was taught basic nursing care, gained so much experience in communicating with patients and their families and how to deliver good holistic care.
The hospice soon outgrew the lodge and moved to a purpose built site at Bentry in 1998 and by 2013 they were treating 2,675 patients a year.
It’s a common misconception that hospice’s are just places that people with cancer go to to die, but they offer an awful lot more. Services include; community nursing, day care, physio and occupational therapy, complementary therapy, psycho/social spiritual care and nursing care in the inpatient unit or by the hospice at home service. All of this to support the patient and their family and loved ones through their journey.
But this comes at a cost, £18,000 a day and the hospice relies on gifts from wills, fundraising and a bit of NHS funding, there are quite a few St.Peter’s Hospice charity shops dotted around Bristol and they do a fantastic job raising much needed money.
The Midnight walk has been going for a number of years with the option of doing 5 or 10 miles around the centre of Bristol. As Jane and I haven’t really been keeping up with our power walk training as often as we planned to, we felt 5 miles would be challenging enough.
All we need is some generous and kind people to sponsor us and our quest. So please feel free to click on the link and part with a quid or two, we will be eternally grateful.
Since writing this post unfortunately We’ve had to pull out of this event but will be making a donation to the cause.
Carole Gardiner
back to life 