From swimming in lakes to getting back out into the garden, hospice care is so much more about dying. It’s about living life to the full, until the last moment.

At St Christopher’s – your local hospice – this is what team help people to do every day. But with a hospice funding crisis across the country, and just a third of their funding coming from the NHS, they are reliant on the support of our community more than ever.

So often, when considering our health, we are asked the question, ‘what’s the matter with you?’

But at St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, that question is instead: ‘what matters to you?’

For Danni, 45 and living in South London, what mattered most was swimming one more time in her beloved Beckenham Place Park.

It was August 2024 and she had just come into the inpatient unit at St Christopher’s after being supported at home by the hospice’s community team.

Hers was not the average request and isn’t easily achieved when someone is dying and has many medical needs.

But with her husband Andy fully supportive, and a huge effort from the hospice’s multidisciplinary team, on a warm and sunny Tuesday morning in early September, she floated in the lake with her dearly loved partner cradling her in his arms.

To quote her, “I can’t feel my feet, hands or face, but I love this.”

“It was such a profound experience, it was pure joy,” Andy said.

Danni died, peacefully, surrounded by her family, two weeks later.

But palliative care is not just the extraordinary. It also allows for the ordinary to reoccur too.

For William, who has heart failure, his aim was to be able to garden again.

A six-week programme in the hospice gym helped him to build up some muscles and now William says he is “able to garden for much longer, even more than before.”

Ava, from Croydon, was referred to St Christopher’s after struggling with breathlessness. When it set in, she’d find herself panicking and becoming more breathless as a result. She lost confidence and stopped socialising.

But learning some new techniques to control her breathing, she reconnected with her community, even attending a concert with friends in Brixton.

For Mick, what helped him was being treated like an individual and not just a patient.

“I was a person they all got friendly with. They made you feel different and looked after me so well, I can’t fault them in any way. Nothing was too much trouble for anyone.”

Mick certainly needed some building up. A six-week course in the gym with the physio has been another key factor in helping make him strong enough to cope at home and, like William, get back into the garden.

“That pulled me round. I was very low. I was on the ward when they first took me – I was in a wheelchair – and did all the minor exercises. I went for six weeks for an hour and loved it. It was the best thing ever. I love training – like for football or boxing and the physio pushed me.”

For Panna, from Bromley, what mattered to her was being at home when she died. So the team worked towards that from the outset with regular visits and support at home, for her, and for her family.

But this remarkable care is only able to be provided thanks to the generous support of you, our South London community.

We rely on donations from the public to fund 2/3 of the work we do. Your support can help us be there for more people like Mick, Panna, Danni, William and Ava, and help them to achieve what matters most.

We supported almost 7,000 patients, families and carers last year across Southwark, Lewisham, Lambeth, Croydon and Bromley. You can help us to continue to be there when people need us most with a donation. 

Donate here: 

https://www.stchristophers.org.uk/donate?utm_campaign=dhfc26?utm_source=offline&utm_medium=partner-article&utm_content=dhfc