Prepared by the Irish Hospice Foundation

For the COVID-19 Committee

Remembrance

and

Renewal

July 2020

Frame the narrative surrounding dying, death, loss, care and grief to help inform futurepolicy. Allow for a sensitive period of national healing and open discussion of previously taboosubjects. Provide space as a country for active collective remembrance, reflection and renewalCome together as individual's and communities and build towards a national recovery.Harness the power of the community and cultural responses to contribute to healingand remembrance

We have prepared a discussion document. In summary, we want to see processes put in place which;

     Remembrance: A national day or week of mourning and remembrance for all who havedied since the pandemic restrictions, to express our collective connection with the bereavedand to honour, comfort and support.

Reflection: Develop a planned process to reignite the national conversation andconsultation on dying, death and bereavement in Ireland, with  national leadership fromGovernment.

As a nation we are in the grip of a pandemic unprecedented in recent living memory. Its effect is immediate and apparent.  The necessary national response to the COVID-19crisis has been urgent and universal affecting all aspects of our lives, personal, familial,social, psychological and economic. Issues related to dying, death, care, loss and griefhave been brought into sharp focus by the COVID-19 crisis. They have challenged andwill continue to challenge how we, as a nation, confront and deal with dying, death andbereavement.

Executive Summary

Since March, over 14,000 people have died, over 1700 from COVID-19

We need to remember themAnd as a nation grieve

Recommendations

There is room for Irish citizens to experience the government as compassionate andenabling through a process of active collective remembrance, inclusive reflection and thebuilding of individual, community and national recovery through the Arts.  To this end, theIHF recommends a tripartite approach encompassing remembrance, and reflection aswe live with the reality of our living, dying and grieving in the post-COVID-19 era

Remembrance:

Commemoration is part of our national identity. We remember, memorialise andpublicly honour the dead of wars on commemoration days.  Flags are flown at half-mast as a mark of respect when public figures die. We hold vigils of silence at sportingoccasions. Together, we mourn and together, we remember.

We Recommend:

When people are bereaved, they want their bereavement and grief to beacknowledged. During the pandemic, the grief journey has often started in a lonely way,with restricted funeral rites, human contact and public acknowledgement.  Whencircumstances allow, many communities will arrange local remembrance for those fromtheir area who have died during COVID-19. But such collective national bereavementdemands a collective national response. We believe that there must be a public, united,national acknowledgement of loss and grief to honour the dead and console thebereaved

"She died without the soft touch of a loved one's handWithout the feathered kiss upon her forehead

Without the muted murmur of familiar family voices gathered around her bed,Without the gentle roar of laughter that comes with memories recalled"

Extract: My sister is not a statistic Dorothy DuffyPublished in The Irish Times - 14th April 2020

A national day or week of mourning and remembrance for all who have diedsince the pandemic restrictions came into effect to express our collectiveconnection with the bereaved and to honour, comfort and support. We welcome the announcement by former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to host anational day of remembrance in coming months, and we are happy to supportand be involved in planning.

The End of Life Symbol is inspired by Celtic imagery.The 3-stranded spiral represents the interconnected cycle of life birth, life anddeath. This symbol is used widely in acute hospitals in Ireland

The People’s Charter espouses an ideal personal, social and political model ofconnected state services, responsive communities and opportunities to have wishes forend of life respected. It was built on extensive engagement with the Irish people. Inorder to continue this engagement as well as capture the new learning from peopleand communities about dying, death and bereavement during COVID-19 we need toask them what they have experienced, what went well, what could be done better andwhat their wishes are for the future.

In 2009 the Irish Hospice Foundation established the Forum on End of Life in Irelandto change the culture of death, dying and bereavement. Using this model we proposethat the State, in partnership with national agencies such as the Irish HospiceFoundation, could reengage the national conversation on dying, death, loss and grief. This cannot just be a megaphone top-down exercise but must be truly reflective andrepresentative of all sectors of society in all circumstances and in all communities. Building on our experience of this type of work, we propose community-basedconsultations and engagement to learn from and to help progress communityresponses.

Reflection:"I want to live and die in an Ireland, where death is talked about

and not hidden away"The people's charter on dying death and bereavement*

Critically, this debate should encourage people to have important conversations withthose they love about their wishes for end-of-life.

We Recommend:

The development of a planned process which will reignite the nationalconversation and consultation on dying, death and bereavement in Ireland, withnational leadership from Government, followed by a mandated process to makeand put into effect recommendations.

*In 2016 IHF asked the Irish public to reflect on their experiences of death and bereavement and to reimagine what living, dying andgrieving in Ireland could be like. Their views were distilled into the People’s Charter on Dying Death and Bereavement in Ireland