Grandmother thanks Macmillan and palliative care unit for her husband’s care
A great-grandmother has thanked the Macmillan nurse and the palliative care unit who cared for her husband in his final moments in a new film.Yvonne Peters, from Pontyclun, has thanked the Macmillan nurse and staff at the Y Bwthyn palliative care unit in Pontypridd Cottage Hospital for the excellent care they gave her husband John, who sadly died of lung cancer in January 2017.
“Our Macmillan nurse was one of the best things that happened to us and the staff at Y Bwthyn were absolutely brilliant,” said Yvonne.
“They were so welcoming and sensitive to the situation.
“John died very quickly after he’d arrived at Y Bwthyn and everything was in place.
“They pulled all the stops out for John as did we as a family and he got what he wanted.”
In the short film, Yvonne also shares her hopes for the new palliative care unit Macmillan Cancer Support and National Garden Scheme are building at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in partnership with Cwm Taf University Health Board.
The eight-bed Y Bwthyn NGS Macmillan Specialist Palliative Care Unit will provide specialist care for people with incurable cancer and other conditions in a welcoming and comfortable environment.
The new unit will mean patients can access certain tests and treatments in the same place rather than need a 20-minute ambulance journey they face each way if being cared for at the current Y Bwthyn unit in Pontypridd.
Retired nurse Yvonne is a member of the group who are planning the state of the art unit and brings to the table her nursing background together with her and John's experience of palliative care.
Yvonne, who is fundraising towards the new unit as a member of the Macmillan Pontyclun and District fundraising group, said: “The new unit won’t be your normal hospital build.
“Everyone involved understands terminally ill patients and their needs.
“The unit will also have facilities for relatives to stay or to break away into other rooms if they need a bit of space.
“I think these lovely facilities will certainly make a difference to staff and for the people who are there.”
Macmillan is donating £5m towards the £7m unit, £2.5m of which has been generously donated to the project by the National Garden Scheme.
The further £2m for the unit has been given by the Welsh Government via its All Wales Capital Programme.
The building work for the unit started in November 2017 and we hope it will open its doors in May 2019.
As part of its long-standing support for Macmillan services across the UK, the National Gardens Scheme (NGS) has generously donated £2.5m towards the unit.
To date, NGS has donated almost £17 million to Macmillan to support people living with cancer, these funds have been raised by NGS opening over 3,800 beautiful, private gardens for charity across the UK.
- We’re asking people to help us build the unit by visiting www.macmillan.org.uk/ybwthyn or by searching for Y Bwthyn on JustGiving.
- For information or support from Macmillan, visit www.macmillan.org.uk or call the Macmillan Support line free on 0808 808 00 00.
You can watch Yvonne’s film at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
