St Clare allowed devoted husband Tony to remain with his beloved wife during height of Covid crisis

When Tony Morris acquired that his spouse Collette had untreatable most cancers, lockdown was about to start off and he feared the mom of their two youngsters would shell out her last days alone in clinic.

But thanks to St Clare Hospice, he was able to keep with her at the charity’s inpatient unit in Hastingwood, in close proximity to Harlow, though she obtained her stop-of-life care.

Collette was just forty two when she was admitted to the hospice. She had been identified in February with an intense most cancers and was explained to toward the stop of March it was untreatable.

“The working day right after we were being explained to that Collette needed palliative care, I understood that we needed to get her out of the clinic,” Tony, forty two, stated.

“The Covid pandemic was worsening and the lockdown was about to get started. I was terrified that if Collette was in a clinic through lockdown then we would not be able to stop by her, and I just didn’t want her to be on her possess.”

On the other hand, Collette was able to be cared for at St Clare – and Tony was able to keep with her.

“Honestly, to be explained to that Collette needed to go to a hospice was scary,” he stated. “We arrived just as the coronavirus lockdown was starting up and matters were being switching. We were being separated off from everyone in Collette’s area, and that’s in which I stayed with her for 10 straight days.

“It was a bodyweight off my shoulders and a sense of reduction, much more than everything, that Collette was in a position in which she was able to get the care she needed. St Clare designed the entire world of variation to us.”

At a time when countrywide information headlines were being dominated by the pandemic, the scientific employees at St Clare ongoing to do all they could to guidance their sufferers.

“Covid designed it more challenging for the nurses,” Tony stated. “St Clare is an setting in which you require to be shut to men and women, but mainly because of the outbreak they had to keep their distance. It ought to have been so tricky for the nurses to go from staying shut and sitting with men and women to preserving a harmless distance.

“For me, there was not one particular stand-out second of our time at St Clare – it was the complete working experience which was so calming. All people was just so generous and form.

“I retained on telling the employees though we were being there that the work they are executing is fantastic. To do a work like caring in a hospice, you have to be a particular particular person. You couldn’t do that work in any other case.”

Collette died at St Clare on April four, just nine months right after her first most cancers diagnosis. She and Tony had two youngsters collectively, Daniel, 17, and Lainnie, 19. Considering that her dying, the Morris family members, who dwell in Harlow, have lifted above £3,600 for the hospice.

Their tale is just one particular illustration of how the charity excelled in spite of the coronavirus disaster.

Hospice Care 7 days finished on Sunday (Oct 11) and the team at St Clare employed the consciousness marketing campaign to showcase all their function, carried out by a team of unsung heroes, to deliver outstanding palliative care, absolutely free of cost, to all who require it in the group.

St Clare is one particular of much more than two hundred charitable hospices throughout the Uk that took aspect in Hospice Care 7 days, led by the countrywide hospice and stop-of-life care charity Hospice Uk.

This yr the topic, This Is What It Requires, highlighted that though hospice care is provided absolutely free for men and women with life-restricting problems and their family members, it fees a good deal and can take a good deal of competencies, men and women and methods.

A spokesperson for St Clare stated: “This yr, as we all navigate the world-wide coronavirus pandemic, it has taken even much more teamwork, excellence and devotion from supporters to proceed to deliver outstanding care throughout the hospice’s inpatient unit and group palliative care groups.”

St Clare is asking supporters to think about getting to be a Pal for Existence – and building a frequent every month donation to the hospice so that it can proceed to be there just about every working day for family members like Tony and Collette’s.

Obtain out much more about providing frequently and staying a St Clare’s Pal for Existence at www.stclarehospice.org.uk/donate/friendforlife/ .