Why a hospital death can be powerful and beautiful
Intended for healthcare professionals
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Why a hospital death can be powerful and beautiful

Francis Edwards Retired lead nurse, Children’s palliative care and bereavement support at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children

There is only one chance to get children’s palliative care right. Society and the NHS must get better at dealing with death

Just before retiring, I was contacted by a mother whose four-week-old baby died in 1974. It had taken her 46 years to feel ready to read the post-mortem report. My team located the report and the baby’s heart, which had been stored with consent. Then we answered the mother’s unresolved questions, placed her daughter’s name in our book of remembrance and included her at our annual remembrance service. Later, the mother wrote again to express her huge gratitude to our team for enabling her to understand, for the first time, why her daughter had died.

Nursing Children and Young People. 32, 6, 12-12. doi: 10.7748/ncyp.32.6.12.s5

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