Hospice at Home Appeal

Ann McCullough is a Hospice at Home Nurse and her role is to help families cope with the anxiety, stress and strain of caring for a loved one with a terminal illness at home.  A lot of what she does focuses on hands-on nursing care for people with a terminal illness and last year Ann and her colleagues cared for 2,756 people across Northern Ireland. We also help families and loved ones come to terms with the issues they face as the end of life approaches. Issues such as what lies ahead, what to expect and together we discuss and try to plan the care they might need.  

Public support has been instrumental in enabling us to care for people at home and it is deeply appreciated by everyone at Northern Ireland Hospice. Ann and her colleagues get to see first hand the positive impact your donations make to families. There will always be people in need of hospice care and it is often frustrating to know that there is more that we need to do.

To give you an idea, we expect to care for over 680 people in homes across Northern Ireland this summer. These are people who are facing a terminal illness and who want to be cared for at home with the people they love and in surroundings which are familiar to them.

Caring for these people will be Ann’s priority over the coming months but to do this we will need you and other people like you to continue to support us and to make a further donation towards our work.  With your continued support Hospice can help to make this happen.

We will help people like George* who sadly passed away last August. His Daughter Emily explains how Hospice at Home helped her family. 

‘We got the devastating news that Dad’s cancer had become terminal early last year. Up until the last couple of months he had managed to maintain most of his independence and it was only when his condition deteriorated rapidly that we began to struggle.

Dad was desperate to stay at home but this was tough as my mum is in her 70’s and isn’t in great health and I’m their only daughter with two young children myself. However, we received great support and advice from Hospice, the nurse came out to talk things through with us all, she gave us lots of options and then put together a plan for Dad’s care.

Towards the end, Dad needed round the clock care. Having the Hospice nurses come and care for Dad at night took away so much of the worry and stress. Thanks to their advice and support, Dad was able to get his wish to spend his last days at home, while Mum got the help and support she needed too.’

We need to ensure that we are able to be there for other people like George, who will unfortunately find themselves in a similar situation this summer and to do this we need your continued help.  By making a donation of whatever you can afford today, you can help us do this.

Ann had many conversations with George late at night when she was sitting with him. He told her about his fears; he worried about what lay in front of him, but most of all he worried about how his family would cope without him. He was very worried about how his wife would deal with his loss and how she would manage on her own as they had been married for almost 50 years.

Just being there for people and being able to reassure them is one of the things Ann values most about her job. George took great comfort from knowing that Hospice was helping his family come to terms with his illness and also that they would be there to continue caring for them after his death.

Sadly there are many people like George, right across the country, who are facing a terminal illness and everything that goes with it and sadly they are relying on voluntary donations from people like you to be able to receive the care they need.                                                                                

Please make a donation of whatever you can afford and help us be there for people like George and his family this summer.

Thank you.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the family involved.