Woman of Worth: Cicely Saunders
June 22, 1918 – July 14, 2005
“You matter because you are you, and you matter to the last moment of your life.”
Cicely Saunders was born in 1918 in Hertfordshire.In 1938 she went to Oxford University to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics. When World War II started, she decided to leave her studies to become a student nurse, however a back injury forced her to leave nursing and in 1945 she went back to Oxford University and qualified as a medical social worker. In 1947 she started working at St Thomas’s hospital and it was here she met Tasma a cancer patient who she fell in love with. After seeing the suffering, loneliness and pain that Tasma went through during his last days, Cicely decided that her mission would be to ease end of life pain.
In 1960 she volunteered to work in St Joseph’s hospice where patients were often terminally ill and little could be done to save them. In 1957 she qualified as a physician and became the first modern doctor to devote her time to dying patients.
Shortly afterwards she met Antoni Michniewicz, another patient whom she fell in love with. By this time Cicely had decided that she wanted to create a place where people could go to and thoroughly enjoy the last few months of their lives.
Anton Michniewicz inspired her to name this place St Christopher after the patron saint of travellers. In 1967 St Christopher’s was opened and was the world’s first modern hospice.
Cicely soon met and fell in love with another patient Marian Bohusz-Szyszko. Although she knew Marian didn’t have long to live, they married. Sadly he died in St Christopher’s.
After the passing away of her husband Cicely continued to dedicate all her time to trying to humanize the dying experience for patients and families.
In 2005, after a long battle with cancer, Cicely died at the hospice which she had founded.
Business Accomplishments
After founding St Christopher’s, Cicely continued to find ways to make the Hospice even more enjoyable for patients. She added a garden, a games room, a hair salon, television room and organised art classes. She also continued to work as the Medical Director for the Hospice.
In 1979 Cicely received a knighthood and became Dame Cicely Saunders.
In 1971 word of her work had spread to America and she inspired the United States Hospice movement.
Cicely also introduced a method of pain control that provided a steady state in which a dying patient could remain conscious and maintain a good quality of life.
In 1985 Cicely was then appointed chairman of St Christopher’s and in 1989 was awarded the order of merit by Queen Elizabeth II.In 2001 she received the world's largest humanitarian award - the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, worth £700,000 - on behalf of St Christopher's.
In 2005 the national portrait gallery unveiled a picture in her honour.
Cicely was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Charity Work
In 1940 Cicely spent time raising money for St Luke’s Home for the Dying Poor in Bayswater.
She also launched the Cicely Saunders Foundation - to help raise money and also to promote research into palliative care.
Since St Christopher’s, there are now more than 3,200 hospices serving 900,000 patients in the US alone and 8,000 hospices in 100 countries around the world.
By Danielle Jawando
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