Tabitha House visit update

Tabitha House, located in beautiful Budapest, is a hospice with which CHAS has established an ongoing partnership. Their team visited Rachel House in the spring of 2018, and this was as part of their own learning and development. The St Andrew's Association (Hungary) kindly sponsored this and since returning, we were pleased to hear that Tabitha House recruited a Volunteer Manager and a Fundraiser - both of which are vital to the development of their organisation.

To continue to build this partnership, The St Andrew's Association (Hungary) offered to fund CHAS staff members the opportunity to visit Tabitha House to continue to share our knowledge and experience of palliative care with the full team in Budapest. During the planning stages it became clear that the Tabitha House team wanted to make the most of our visit and explained they were keen to stage a symposium on 'Paediatric Palliative Care'. During the discussions the concept emerged of the Tabitha House staff and CHAS staff presenting together. This would be an incredible opportunity for both teams to share learning with colleagues from across Hungary, so we jumped at the idea!

In early September 2019, the CHAS team and I were Budapest bound! The CHAS team consisted of Maria McGill, Nicola Porciani, Laura Heggan, Pat Carragher and myself. We travelled to Tabitha House and were greeted by our incredibly welcoming hosts, Dr Gabor Benyo (Medical Director) and Judit Hegedus (Director of Nursing).

Firstly, they gave us a tour of the house and we were introduced to three of the children who were in their care; a teenager who needed ventilator support who usually resides in hospital; a teenager on a respite visit; and a baby receiving end of life care. There are no facilities for families to stay during respite visits although there is family accommodation available for when a child is at the end of their life or for those who are on a first visit.

These are the only occasions when families are able to stay at Tabatha House. We enjoyed informative presentations from Judit and Gabor, as well as from their Fundraiser, Volunteer Manager and the Finance Manager. It was clear from the presentations that the Tabitha House team is ambitious, and keen to reach as many children as possible. They even have plans to build a specially designed hospice centre.

In that first afternoon, we met in small groups to discuss our presentations and workshops ahead of the symposium taking place the following day. There was a lot to talk about! The day of the symposium arrived. We were all very excited and a tad nervous to be presenting alongside our friends from Tabitha House to an audience of over 50 people, with our English being simultaneously translated into Hungarian.

We were all privileged to be welcomed by Iain Lindsay, the UK Ambassador for Hungary, who opened the event. He was able to seamlessly transition from speaking in Hungarian to English and captivated the audience.

First up for CHAS was our very own CEO, Maria, who gave an overview of children's palliative care in Scotland and the role of CHAS. She presented data from The ChiSP Study and suggested that it could be useful for Hungary to have similar data for their population.

Next up was. Pat, who discussed the 're-orientation' of care, an unfamiliar phrase in Hungary, and introduced the concept of Anticipatory Care Planning. Laura presented beautifully about the care delivered to children and families in CHAS, while Nicola gave a brilliant presentation on the development of volunteering in CHAS. During this, the audience was delighted to watch a film of a young volunteer at Robin House, who spoke perfect Hungarian, as she described some of her role.

I presented on fundraising and influence, and enjoyed presenting from a different angle than my usual stance.

The symposium was a huge success with delegates from palliative care and acute care settings across Hungary and a pediatrician from Romania also attended. All were able to discuss how to work together going forward. There was an official photographer present and all presentations were recorded. Everyone was provided with headphones and the simultaneous translators did a fantastic job at ensuring everything was translated accurately and in a timely manner. To round off the day, our wonderful hosts took us on a night tour of Budapest which was simply memorable.

On our last day, we returned to Tabitha House where we were able to reflect on the symposium and look at an action plan focused on next steps. Gabor and Maria gave some final speeches and everyone agreed the trip had been a resounding success and strong friendships had been forged. We all agreed that we would continue our relationship with Tabitha House, and the St Andrew's Association has committed to continue to support this. There will hopefully be more updates to come!

The hospitality we encountered was generous, considerate, loving and truly symbolic of hospice care. We are so grateful to our colleagues in Tabitha House for the opportunity to learn with them and share their journey.