Hospice
A year later, she began working at the Roman Catholic St Joseph's Hospice in Hackney, east London, where she was to stay for seven years, and researched pain control. It was while there that she met a second Pole, Antoni Michniewicz, a patient with whom she fell in love. His death, in 1960, coincided with the death of Saunders's father, and another friend, and put her into what she later called a state of "pathological grieving". But she had already decided to set up her own hospice, focused on cancer patients, and said that Michniewicz's death had shown her that "as the body becomes weaker, so the spirit becomes stronger".
Saunders claimed that after 11 years of thinking about the project, she had drawn up a comprehensive blueprint and sought finance after reading Psalm 37: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass." She also succeeded in engaging the support of Albertine Winner, the deputy chief medical officer at the Ministry of Health at the time. Later, Dame Albertine Winner would become chairwoman of St. Christopher's. In 1965 Saunders was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
In 1967, St Christopher's Hospice, the world's first purpose-built hospice, was established. The hospice was founded on the principles of combining teaching and clinical research, expert pain and symptom relief with holistic care to meet the physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs of its patients and those of their family and friends. It was a place where patients could garden, write, talk - and get their hair done. There was always, Saunders would emphasize, so much more to be done, and she did it, as its medical director from 1967, and then, from 1985, as its chairman, a post she occupied until 2000, when she became president.
In 1979, Queen Elizabeth II honoured Cicely Saunders with the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). In 1981 Dame Cicely was awarded the Templeton Prize, the world's richest annual prize awarded to an individual. In 1989 Dame Cicely was appointed to 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. On 25 April 2005, another portrait of her was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery. Dame Cicely was one of the subjects of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's book: Courage: Eight Portraits. She was 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.
In 1963, three years after the death of Mr. Michniewicz, Cicely became familiar with the paintings of Professor Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, a Polish émigré with a degree in fine art. They met and became friends shortly thereafter. She became a patron of his art, and a substantial amount of his work is hung at St Christopher's Hospice. Marian had a long-estranged wife in Poland, whom he supported, and he was a devout Catholic. Marian’s wife died in 1975 and, in 1980 he married Cicely; she was 61 and he was 79. Marian died in 1995, spending his last days at St Christopher's Hospice.
Cicely Saunders International
In 2002 Dame Cicely Saunders co-founded a new charity - Cicely Saunders International. Dame Cicely was a founder trustee and its President. The charity's mission is to promote research to improve the care and treatment of all patients with progressive illness and to make high-quality palliative care available to everyone who needs it - be it in hospice, hospital or home. The charity has co-created the world's first purpose built Institute of Palliative Care - the Cicely Saunders Institute, and supported research to improve the management of symptoms such as breathlessness, action to meet more closely patient and family choice in palliative care, and better support for older people.
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