Assisi Hospice is a
hospice
Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by ...
in Singapore which provides
palliative care to
terminally ill patients.
History
Founded in 1969 by the
Catholic order
In the Catholic Church, a religious order is a community of consecrated life with members that profess solemn vows. They are classed as a type of religious institute.
Subcategories of religious orders are:
* canons regular (canons and canoness ...
Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood as Assisi Home for the poor and sick, and was reconstituted as Assisi Hospice in 2007.
It is owned and run by the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood.
The
Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood (FMDM) Sisters have a long tradition of providing healthcare. In 1949, the local government invited a small group of FMDM Sisters for a nursing post in the Tuberculosis Section of Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore. The Sisters were also nursing leprosy patients at the Trafalgar Home and staffing the School of Nursing there.
Anticipating their services would no longer be needed after Singapore's recovery from the
Japanese Occupation, the Sisters saved their hard earned salaries to build up a fund for the eventual building of a private Catholic hospital. These 10 years savings were augmented by generous donations from both companies and individuals.
On 4 March 1961, Mount Alvernia Hospital was officially opened. In 1969, donations from the late
Mr Khoo Teck Puat saw the building of an extension of
Mount Alvernia Hospital. The beds in this block are for chronically ill patients.
In 1986, the Khoo block started accepting respite patients. The building eventually became known as Assisi Home. Assisi Home derived its name from the birthplace of
Saint Francis St. Francis or Saint Francis may refer to:
Roman Catholic saints
*Francis of Assisi (1181–1226), Italian founder of the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans)
*Francis of Paola (1416–1507), Italian (Calabrian) founder of the Order of the Minims
* ...
, the Founder of the
Franciscan Movement.
In March 1988, the Congregation of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood expanded into the area of Hospice Care. Hence Assisi began to admit only cancer patients requiring respite and hospice care. In 1992, the Sisters vacated their convent and refurbished it into a new hospice.
Assisi Home & Hospice was officially opened in April 1993 by the then President of Singapore, the late
Mr Wee Kim Wee.
In 1993, Assisi discontinued the admission of patients for long-term care and focused on hospice care for the terminally ill cancer patients. Assisi Home & Hospice was changed to Assisi Hospice as a statement of our steadfast commitment to this mission.
A centre for compassionate and personalised palliative care, Assisi Hospice has also admitted patients with non-cancer diagnoses as it recognise the significant suffering even among those with other life limiting illnesses. This is consistent with its core values to serve all adults and children who need of palliative and hospice care.
Facilities and services
Assisi Hospice provides
in-patient hospice care,
day-care facilities, and
home care Homecare (also spelled as home care) is health care or supportive care provided by a professional caregiver in the individual home where the patient or client is living, as opposed to care provided in group accommodations like clinics or nursing ho ...
support.
In 2011, it cared for 444 in-patients, 101-day-care patients, and 675 home-care patients, the vast majority of whom were from
public hospitals.
As of 2012, Assisi Hospice had a capacity of 37 beds and 90 staff, of which five were full-time doctors trained in palliative care.
It also had 570
volunteers in its
database.
New building
The current building occupied by Assisi hospice used to be a
convent belonging to the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood nuns.
in 2012, after an open tender and design competition held to appoint a team of Multi-Disciplinary Team of Consultants. The final team, led by architect and lead consultant New Space Architects Private Limited, was appointed after a rigorous selection process.
Assisi Hospice moved to its new premises in January 2017. Sited next to its current building
and costing SGD 70 million, the new six-storey building will be able to serve more than 2,000 patients a year, double the 1,000 patients it has been serving. There are now 85 beds, up from 37. Its
groundbreaking ceremony was held on 29 July 2013.
On 30 November 2013, philanthropist Khoo Bee See, daughter of the late banker-philanthropist
Khoo Teck Puat, pledged SGD 1 million to Assisi Hospice, one of the largest by an individual to the hospice.
*Beds
:The six-storey building
spread over 5,515 sq m of land will have 48 single rooms, with the rest being two- or four-bed rooms.
*Dementia & Paediatric Wards
:The new hospice will also have a specialised 16-bed ward for
dementia patients and a dedicated
paediatric palliative care ward, both of which will be the first of their kind in Singapore.
:The dementia-friendly palliative care ward will have a 'closed loop' leading to and from the ward through a bridge and
sensory garden to prevent patients from wandering out of the ward.
:The paediatric ward will have child-friendly features, as well as a playground and garden. The hospice will offer play therapy and art therapy.
*Daycare Centre
:The new hospice will also have a larger daycare centre, which will be able to serve 50 patients, 20 more than it currently does.
*Ambulatory Treatment Unit
:The new hospice will also offer an ambulatory (or walking) treatment unit which will render urgent medical help for patients who do not need to be admitted as an in-patient.
*Family-Friendly Features
:The new hospice will have a chapel, a
labyrinth for
meditative walks, a "
kopitiam"-type dining area for patients and their families, and two family rooms where families of patients can stay the night.
*Training & Education
:A Centre for Palliative Care Education and Therapy will be established in the new building to train health-care professionals and volunteers in palliative care. This will include a centre for
grief
Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cogni ...
and bereavement education, which will carry out training as well as public awareness programmes.
*Staffing
:The hospice will increase its number of home palliative care teams from three to five to help 500 more patients.
It will also increase its number of staff to 250, including 12 full-time doctors.
References
External links
Assisi HospiceSingapore Hospice Council
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Hospices
Medical and health organisations based in Singapore
1969 establishments in Singapore