Newsletter June 2021

Online-Commemoration for the Deceased

In the new mission statement of Johannes-Hospiz, completed in 2020, it says:

“We live a culture of memory. And memory is more than a recollection or an entry in a book. There remains a bond, for each and everyone forms us. We keep the memory and we walk along with those left to mourn. We appreciate processes of mourning and the ways of dealing with parting.”

One of these ways of saying goodbye is our memorial service. Way past their deaths we still feel a rapport with the deceased residents of the hospice. We will always invite to the ceremony all relatives and friends of those who had died during the last months. Due to the pandemic restrictions this ceremony was transmitted for the first time as a live stream from the chapel of the Franciscan mother house in March 2021, commemorating 45 persons who had died between August and December 2020. The names of the deceased were read out, candles were lighted, and a ...

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Standing up for Dignity – a one day’s seminar

After having completed a three years’ process of formulating a misson statement we now feel the need of deepening the themes reflected in the statement in order to keep it in motion. One of its basic tenets is dignity which was the starting subject in a one day’s seminar. 15 honorary and fully employed colleagues both from the in- and out-patient hospice and the department of care for the mourning and public relations had come to the event which had been organized by the Academy. This almost ideal constellation made possible a lively and interdisciplinary exchange directed by Maria Runtenberg and Andreas Stähli. By keeping the rules of hygiene and distancing and carrying out preceding rapid tests, wherever necessary, we succeeded in discussing this subject matter in a methodically varied, interactive ...

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Textbook Palliative Care for Nurses published in Ukraine

Many of the projected activities included in the cooperation between the two hospices in Iwano-Frankiwsk and Münster and supported by the Foreign Office had to be canceled owing to the pandemic. The most ambitious project, however, could successfully be completed: the making and publication of a textbook of palliative care for nurses in Ukrainian. In fragile times like these with all their uncertainties it touches me very much that we made it. We, that means particularly the colleagues of the project group and the two translaters.

I find the result of this intensive work process as impressive. This textbook entitled “Palliative Care” (ПАЛІАТИВНА ДОПОМОГА) is meant to be a practically oriented guide for the professional group of nurses and is the first one of its kind for this core group of palliative care in Ukraine. It has 344 pages ...

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