Waipuna hospice - the story of hand to hand encounters of the visionary kind in palliative care

Abstract

This thesis is presented as a grand narrative to reveal how Waipuna Hospice was developed through a series of extraordinary events both planned and serendipitous. This thesis presents this larger composite and woven story of the development of a palliative care service in a community, through a series of smaller stories, conversations and interviews. All these smaller stories are narrated by the clinical nurse leader and manager as researcher, whose intimate involvement in the development of the Hospice creates a unique reflective lens. She offers both the story of the experience of creating the vision and the parameters that influenced the development of the reality of the actual Hospice. The thesis reveals that in fact the vision is never one person's but rather a place in which the philosophy of the service, which includes the actual care and the leadership, allows for the unique journey of every person, family or whanau. The significant stories and conversations which have been chosen for the thesis are representative of the span of the narrator's concern in representing the world of Hospice and palliative care nursing. The place of leadership and the framework for a service are explored both in terms of how the actual Hospice was developed and how it has been situated in the evolving context of health reforms and the development of a New Zealand Palliative Care Strategy (2001).