Father Eugeniusz Dutkiewicz SAC Hospice

The founding movement was led by the Pallottine priest Eugeniusz Dutkiewicz, one of the pioneers of the concept of hospice care in Poland.

This model of help comprises personnel's visits at a patient's place of residence and provides specialised medical equipment, medicines and dressings.

The palliative care team includes physicians, nurses, therapists, specialists carrying out rehabilitation, clergymen and charity workers.

A Palliative Care and Pain Therapy Outpatient Clinic has been established in the hospice house so as to deal with patients in the final stage of their disease.

The professional medical team, i.e. doctors and nurses, additionally aided by both clergymen and volunteers, strive to improve quality of life for people facing this difficult period of their existence.

Some main examples of volunteers' duties are: providing assistance with personal care such as bathing, doing light housekeeping for the patients and their families, and being a comforting and supportive presence.

[1] 'Fields of Hope' (Pola Nadziei) is an international campaign, first conducted in Scotland by the Marie Curie Cancer Care Foundation.

The volunteers, dressed in yellow T-shirts, collect money for the hospice on streets, in parks, in front of churches and shopping malls.

The Package from the Heart campaign (Paczka od Serca) is organised each year in December, with the aim of helping the youngest patients.

[3] The volunteers, dressed as angels, took part in the opening parade, and organised an additional attraction for spectators and the ill from Gdańsk Hospice.