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Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of our history program Witness with me Simon Watts. Today I'm bringing you the story of Dame

Sicily Saunders, the founder of the Modern Hospice Movement. She's credited with

revolutionizing the way health care systems around the world treat dying patients.

In 1967 a British doctor called Sicily Saunders opened her first hospice in South London.

St. Christopher's with its 62 beds is very different from the sort of place you might expect to find.

It's unobtrusive on a tree-lined main road, you might walk past it if you didn't know it was there,

and inside it's light, airy and spacious.

The calm, open environment and the philosophy at St. Christophors

would inspire thousands of other hospices.

There are flowers everywhere and the decorations

bright and cheerful. Many of the staff are young which gives the

place a natural informality and the rules are almost non-existent. There's a fountain in the

garden where the children play.

The idea of St. Christophas was to get dying patients out of busy general hospitals

and into more relaxed places which could deal with their specific needs.

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