Brendan Gleeson has praised the hospice for the care they offer to families in need.
Both the actor’s parents passed away in a hospice and he explained that it’s only when you’re touched by the work they do that you really appreciate it.
“It’s only when you’re privy to the effect it has on everyone involved, people think hospice care is just looking after the patients but it’s not, patient care is paramount, but it’s the gift that happens to the immediate family and everyone who’s grieving or coming to terms with it,” he told VIP Magazine.
The star explained that while patient care is paramount in the hospice, it also helps the family and friends of the person who is ill.
“A lot of people who come in here are terminally ill so a lot of care happened prior to this stage, good or bad, usually people come here when the family have really been stepping up to the mark and they are wasted out and they don’t know where to turn anymore.
“It’s coming to the end so for the family there is a huge trauma involved in thinking about what’s going to happen when their loved one passes on but they don’t have time to think about that, they are just coping with the immediate, so then the hospice comes and takes a lot of that away.”
The hospice also offers home assistance for patients who remain in their homes for their end of life care, something Brendan says is invaluable.
“Or if it happens at home, they just alleviate all that so that people don’t feel they are on their own. It’s all about making death part of life, because it is part of life we just have to get over it and we have to survive it and this is just purely focused on survival and coping.”
The Calvary star also said that it takes a lot of compassion and integrity to work in hospice care.
“If they are not special coming in they are special going out. I don’t think everyone is up to it because there is a confrontation with the reality of mortality so people who come here are looking at that every day, and the lead up to it, you go through all the phases so it takes a certain gumption to put yourself in that situation.
“You can feel the integrity in the people that give it a go, I don’t know if you have to be a special type of person to go into it but you certainly end up a special sort of person.”
The actor previously said that the work that goes on in palliative care restored his faith in humanity, and made him more optimistic.
“It’s only when it hits you personally, it’s the depth of it and the amount of volunteering that goes on, and the commitment of people to make things better is really life-enhancing in the oddest sort of way,” he explained.
Brendan was speaking at the launch of Ireland’s Biggest Coffee Morning for Hospice together with Bewley’s in St. Francis Hospice, Blanchardstown.
The actor is an ambassador for the coffee morning that runs on Thursday, September 20th to help raise vital funds for their local hospice and home care service.
The 63-year-old lost his mother Pat in 2008 and his father Frank in 2010 and says that the grieving process was aided by the knowledge they were well looked after by the hospice.
“I’m well over it now but I still can remember fondly. It takes a while for the sense of relief to go because you don’t want them to be going through that forever. There comes a time when it needs to stop so for a couple of years there is a relief and then the memories of them in their health to come back properly in a way that’s not threatened by the process of dying,” he explained.
“I remember when Mam was laid out in the hospice and I went down and had a chat with her and I told my brother-in-law about the chat and he said ‘well it won’t be the last one,’ and it hasn’t been.
“Now the memories are pleasant and it’s been hugely helped by knowing they went out in peace.”
