Inspirational Stories

The Hub of the Hospice
Gisela Taylor is one of a team of three housekeepers at the North Shore Hospice. Caring and dedicated, Gisela is responsible for designing and cooking meals for the patients with the help of some thirty volunteers... (read more)

Hospice Helps Young Family
Fun-loving, warm and generous, Claire Kemp died at the age of only thirty-six after losing her battle with cancer. Her husband Brian, and their four-year-old son, Alex now face the reality of their first Christmas without her... (read more)

Enduring Thanks for Priceless Gifts
Have you ever thought how you would hold out a hand for help as your worst fears became realities? Most of us don't consider this until confronted with it... (read more)

Brave and Courageous to the End
Diagnosed with lung cancer in July 2001, Martin Phillipps died on 8 February 2002, one month short of his forty-sixth birthday after a courageous battle with the illness. His wife, Anita, remembers a strong and brave man who lived his life fully to the very end... (read more)

Hospice Care in the Home
Warm and caring and with an extraordinary talent for putting people at ease, Jan Wickens has spent the past twelve years working for the hospice. She is one of a special team of nurses who go out into the homes of patients who have a terminal illness to care for them... (read more)

Beyond Tuesdays with Morrie
The other day I heard a hospice worker say that they were dealing with living people in their work - admittedly living people with limited time - but they were still living people. To me that says it all... (read more)

Caring for the Dying
When former New Zealand Herald journalist, Bert Nealon, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, his wife Patsy immediately reached for the phone for the Hospice's help... (read more)

Hospice Care
The first thing you notice when you meet Richard Steel is his larger-than-life personality, his witty and articulate intelligence and his matter of fact attitude to life. Richard, an investment banker, was in his early forties when diagnosed with an incurable condition, Idiopathic Congenital Lymphoedema... (read more)

Hospice Volunteer Becomes a Patient
It is just over eighteen months ago that the North Shore Hospice lost one of its special butterflies. When Joyce Gould picked up the phone to offer to be a volunteer at the hospice, she wasn't to know that in future years she would be terminally ill and in need of the hospice services... (read more)

Living With Terminal Cancer
Cherie Anderson was a courageous young woman who daily fought a personal battle with terminal cancer. Strength of character, a down-to-earth attitude and a glowing spirit were all attributes that readily come to mind after meeting her. Married to Brian and with a young son, she first discovered she had breast cancer when she was only 34 years old... (read more)

The Difference the Hospice Makes
There is an enduring myth that hospice is a place you go to die and that is all it has to offer. In my experience nothing could be further from the truth. I have lost both my parents to cancer and their differing experiences demonstrate the important, life-affirming work the hospice does... (read more)