Welcome to the Wicklow Hospice Foundation
The Wicklow Hospice Foundation is a non-profit organisation that was set up by the people of Wicklow, for the people of Wicklow, to promote and campaign for the right of every person to choose and decide where they wish to spend their last days.
Our Vision:
To have a full seven day palliative care service and a purpose built level three Hospice in County Wicklow.
Our Aims:
Short term: Secure a further 3 nursing posts bringing Wicklow up to a total of 7 nurses which would allow for a seven day a week cover.
Medium term: Provision of a free standing 12 bed level 3 hospice building in County Wicklow. This is to be a Consultant lead specialist service with a multi-disciplinary home care team attached and should also include a day centre. This hospice should be built in such a way as to enable future expansion.
We seek an end to the serious regional inequity of service provision. These Aims are already enshrined in HSE policy document.
The statistics relating to investment in palliative care services are truly shocking. The Northwest spends over €33 per head of population on these services. Wicklow only gets €5 per head.
Background
The Wicklow Hospice Foundation was set up in Jan ’09 with the support of the Irish Hospice Foundation in an effort to promote and improve palliative care services in Wicklow and to campaign for a stand-alone 12 bed specialist hospice for the county. The vital new 12-bed facility, which we hope will be started by 2012, will provide a specialist service for end of life care, respite, day-care facilities and outpatient clinics for symptom control. It will also provide a program of palliative and supportive care services providing physical, psychological, social, and spiritual care for patients, their families, and other loved ones. It will embrace not only patients with cancer but offer end-of-life care to most non-malignant illnesses focusing on comfort and quality of life so that they can live each day as fully as possible and with dignity. We are pleased to be able to report some great progress over the last 2 1/2 years;
Campaign Progress to Date:
The appointment of 3 new specialist homecare nurses bringing the team up to a total for 4, the target for a 7 day service is 7 such posts
The appointment of a specialist palliative care consultant with sessions in Loughlinstown Hospital and with the homecare team
The establishment of a working group led by HSE management to agree a site and business case for the establishment of a 12 room inpatient hospice. The working group has made genuine progress on the business case which shows that there are real opportunities to achieve our objectives by engaging with the current HSE transformation programme and reconfiguring resources to provide better quality and more cost effective care to patients.
Total fundraising to date is €1,715,000 from the tireless fundraising & extremely generous donations by the people of Wicklow.(including an anonymous €1,000,000 donation) and donation of a suitable site for the building by the Columban Sisters at Magheramore, near Brittis Bay.
Committed support from our local government TD’s
The active support of our patrons who have given their valued time and generosity during the year.
Yours sincerely,
The Committee
Wicklow Hospice Foundation