for people in Coventry and Warwickshire. The Myton Hospices has launched its Bed Appeal to raise £327,000 which could fund three more Myton beds for 12 months, so more local people and their families can receive the specialist hospice care they need.
The Myton team, including Chair of Trustees Sarah Faulkner and CEO Ruth Freeman, were joined by local mayors and councillors*, as well as staff from local businesses Cadent and Squab Removals. To launch the appeal they pushed a hospice bed from Warwick Myton Hospice to Warwick Market Square highlighting the urgent need for funding to open more hospice beds.
The Myton Hospices is the only hospice in Coventry and Warwickshire providing specialist palliative and end of life care, and the only local hospice with inpatient beds. Myton has 36 beds, but can currently only afford to keep 25 open.
The charity reports that every year, around 200 local people die or become too unwell to move while waiting for a hospice bed at Myton to become available. That’s almost four people a week. Yet hospice beds remain closed because there isn’t enough funding to open them.
Ruth Freeman, CEO of The Myton Hospices, said:
“Everyone at the end of their life deserves excellent care. They should have access to the very best pain management and symptom control, which is provided by Myton’s specialist teams. We have beds standing empty because we don’t have the funding to open them, yet we have waiting lists every day.
No one should have to spend their final days in A&E, on a trolley in a hospital corridor, or on a waiting list for a hospice bed when, with more funding, we could provide the specialist support they need.
£327,000 could fund three Myton beds for 12 months, helping us make specialist hospice care available to more people and their families across Coventry and Warwickshire.
Please help by donating today so that we can continue our fight to open more beds and support more people when they need us the most.”
Kat, whose husband Dan was cared for at Warwick Myton Hospice before he died aged just 38, said:
“Typical visions of a hospice can be quite negative, but I was astounded at how different Myton was. The staff were so welcoming and present – it was mind-blowing. It was the little things. We could bring in anything we wanted for his room, I could stay overnight with him in his room, and we could even get takeaways. It was the freedom we had to spend our time however we wanted. And the level of care was incredible.”
Myton needs your help to raise £327,000, which could fund three more Myton beds for 12 months, so more people like Dan, Kat and their children can receive the specialist hospice care they need.
No one should die waiting for a hospice bed. To find out more and to donate now, visit www.mytonhospice.org/beds
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At The Myton Hospices we believe that everyone matters for every single moment of their life; we focus on enhancing life when cure is no longer an option. We are not just about end of life care, we support patients and their loved ones right from the moment they are diagnosed.
We have three hospices in Coventry, Rugby and Warwick, and we care for people aged 18+ living with a wide range of life-limiting illnesses including Respiratory, Heart & Neurological conditions, Cancer and Organ failure.
At Myton, demand for our Inpatient Units has increased by 11% in the last 12 months, and too many people are dying on the waiting list for this vital service. As the only provider of Hospice Inpatient Beds in Coventry and Warwickshire, we are acutely aware of the need for more, but are limited in what we can provide due to funding constraints.
It costs over £15 million every year to provide our services free of charge to our patients and their loved ones. As a charity, with less than 20% of our funding coming from the NHS, we must raise more than £12 million this year. We rely on donations and support from our local communities.
Find out more online at www.mytonhospice.org
* The Myton Hospices Bed Appeal launch was joined by:
Sir Jeremy Wright, Conservative MP for Kenilworth and Southam
Councillor Sarah Boad, Mayor of Leamington
Councillor Simon Pargeter, Mayor of Warwick
Councillor Nikki Scott, Green Party MP for Warwick South
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