Dying Matters is a coalition of individual and organisational members across England and Wales, which aims to help people talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement, and to make plans for the end of life.
Each year, there is a Dying Matters awareness week. For 2020, the week begins on Monday 11 May and has a theme of ‘Dying to be Heard’.
Weston Hospicecare invited members of the public to submit questions and thoughts about dying and death and have recorded three conversations with staff that will be available on our website and social media platform which we hope help answer some common questions about death, dying and the hospice as an organisation, but also encourage people to talk about death and dying without fear.
We cover several topics including sudden and traumatic death within the first conversation. We feel this is particularly poignant during the current pandemic.
The videos will appear below when they become available, remember to stay tuned to our social media pages for the latest updates.
“Weston Hospicecare hopes this year’s Dying Matters Awareness week will provide a fresh opportunity for all of UK society to venture into conversations with friends and loved ones around death and dying which perhaps we tend to shy away from in our day-to-day busy lives.
“All of us will be affected by death at some point in our life, both directly and indirectly, and the more we are able to dissolve the taboos around this topic the more healthy our society will be.
“Today (11 May) we are considering the trauma associated with sudden or unexpected death and how painful this can be for family and friends who never had a chance to say goodbye, or put affairs in order the way the deceased person may have wished because those conversations simply never happened.
“The relevance to the Covid-19 challenge we are all now facing couldn’t be more stark, with many families all over the country and world experiencing unexpected grief and anguish at the loss of loved ones before their time.
“Weston Hospicecare’s bereavement counselling services provided by our Family Support Team to family members both before and after the death of a loved one, seek to facilitate these conversations and to prepare us for the pain of bereavement and loss.”
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