On the 6th July 1948, a miracle occurred. The Marie Curie International Memorial was set up and a little later it became the Marie Curie Memorial Foundation. The first appeal raised £4000. This would be worth £186,000 today, so £4000 was a massive amount in those days.
There were four priorities on how to use this money:
- The first was to establish special residential homes to care for cancer patients.
- The second was to provide home nursing.
- The third was to provide help practically, offering bed linen, furniture and medical equipment.
- The fourth was to give the public proper advice about cancer and the help available.
This was such forward thinking just after the war. It was the same year as the start of the National Health Service under Aneurin Bevan. So the charity worked alongside , offering specific services. It was a very exciting period with all this innovation to try to improve the health of the people. They had suffered greatly during the war and people and politicians were trying to change their lives for the better. It was a different way of thinking.
The Foundation began to develop its four priorities while continuing the fund-raising. It was a difficult time as people did not have much money and had lost so much with the bombing during the war.
In 1952, Marie Curie set up its first care home for cancer patients. From then on, over the next ten years, this amazing charity opened 9 more care homes.
The home nursing priority ran alongside that. They felt that if people wanted to stay in their own homes when they were terminally ill, they had every right to make that choice. They made sure that nurses were available to do this job.
Not only did the Foundation help the patient but it started doing research on drugs for the treatment of blood cancers.
By 1974, when the responsibility for community care was given to the NHS, they discovered that the Marie Curie Foundation was caring for 3664 people in 200 local authorities. An extraordinary achievement.
They started to extend their research into the control of the growth of hormone dependent tumours.
Palliative medicine became the next focus and so hospices became an important aspect of their work. They also developed a wide range of day services becoming much more involved in their local communities.
In order to carry on all this work, fund-raising became an essential part of their work. In 1986 in Scotland they did the first daffodil appeal and the daffodil remains a symbol of Marie Curie.
Since 2000, Marie Curie has campaigned to give people the right to die at home. The nursing service reduces the need for emergency trips to the hospital, allows more people to die at home and cut hospital costs.
They have also introduced the Marie Curie Helper Service. Trained volunteers can help local people with a terminal illness. This way they are able to move away from just cancer, but dealing with other terminal illnesses such as Dementia and Motor Neurone Disease.
In addition to these services, Marie Curie also offers extensive support online and over the phone with their free ‘Information & Support Service’ and has also gone on to launch a volunteer led Bereavement service, for families and loved ones experiencing grief and loss.
Their future plan is to offer support to more people more quickly, and they have dedicated teams working to research better end of life care, campaigning for changes which make this possible.
“We’ll be by your side with care and support every step of the way, bringing light in the darkest hour”.
How true. There are so many of us out there who have turned to Marie Curie for help with dying relatives and have never been let down. As a woman caring for her dying mother said,
“Marie Curie made the unbearable, bearable.”
Marie Curie visits schools and tries to educate children in a sympathetic manner about terminal illnesses. We must remember some of the carers are actually children.
They always need volunteers and there are so many ways that you can be involved, dear reader.
You can donate, fundraise, join a campaign, get other people involved, become an ordinary volunteer or a trained helper. You can enquire by contacting your local Community Fundraiser, Ali Discombe on 07515 134 710 or emailing alison.discombe@mariecurie.org.uk
When dealing with a dying relative, you may think you are alone. You will run the gamut of emotions. You may have financial worries. You may think that you are the only one feeling all this or having to worry about money but Marie Curie is there to help you on your sad journey.
Finishing on a personal note, Marie Curie nurses helped me when my mother was dying. I know what it meant to have them there, to give me a break, to talk to volunteers so that I had a listening ear in my time of need. I will always be grateful for their support and the attention they gave me.
They truly brought light to me in my darkest hour as they have done to thousands of other carers and the terminally ill themselves.
This is an amazing organisation and whenever I see someone with a daffodil on their coat I smile to myself as another comrade passes me by, supporting the Marie Curie Charity. That little daffodil is enough. It speaks to everyone. Someone has been helped when you see that symbol, the little yellow daffodil.
