The beginnings of palliative hospice care and the medicalization of death

The medicalization of death in modern society which occurred in late XIXth and most predominantly first half of the XXth century, was first named and described only in the 60ties. The main problem of the article is to what extent, if any, was the foundation and development of modern palliative hospice care the reaction to the process of medicalization. The study was performed on the basis of articles published by Cicely Saunders – founder of world’s hospice movement and in Poland analyzing the foundation and early days of the first three Polish hopices: in Kraków, Gdańsk and Poznań. The important features of both British and Polish hospice movement indicate the aims of the founders to re-prioritize medical ideology (to care instead of cure), enhance the idea of accompanying the dying instead of hiding the process and the fact of death. Another important aim of the movement was to involve the family as one of the most important (if not the most important) care giver. All those features enable us to state that the foundation of British and Polish hospice movement might be viewed as the reaction to medicalization and over medicalization of death.