Dr Anne Merriman obituary
While working in Singapore in the 1980s, Anne devised an affordable morphine-based painkiller, and took it to Africa in the 90s. In 1993 in Kampala, Uganda, she founded Hospice Africa, establishing a hospice model that could be adapted for other countries. By 2023, Hospice Africa had cared for more than 37,000 patients in Uganda, and today it helps provide home-based palliative care in more than 35 countries across Africa.
Born in Liverpool, Anne was the third of four children of Josie (nee Dunne), a typist, and Thomas Merriman, a primary school headteacher. Aged four, Anne had opened a magazine about missionaries in Africa and told her mother she was 'going to help these children'. That conviction deepened when, at 14, she watched The Visitation, a film about medical nuns in Africa.
After her secondary education at Broughton Hall Convent grammar school, Anne crossed the Irish Sea in 1954 to join the Medical Missionaries of Mary. As a young sister she studied medicine at University College Dublin, and on gaining her degree in 1963, she departed for Nigeria for the first of two postings there.
In 1973 Anne left the order and returned to Liverpool to work as a consultant and senior lecturer in geriatric medicine at the David Lewis Northern hospital for four years. The hospital closed in 1978, and Anne continued to develop her compassion-driven approach to palliative care while revamping the geriatric medicine units at hospitals in Whiston and St Helens.
Anne's mother was good friends with my grandmother, and our families had in common a favourite holiday cottage in the Lake District. Despite her love of that area, and her ties to Liverpool, after Josie's death in 1981 Anne moved abroad again, first to Malaysia in 1983, to take up an associate professor role in the department of public health at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, then to the National University of Singapore the following year as a senior teaching fellow.
From her flat she started the volunteer-led Hospice Care Group, which became the country's Hospice Care Association. With help from the university hospital, she developed a groundbreaking formula of affordable pure oral morphine – comprising morphine powder, water and a preservative.
On becoming medical director of the newly opened Nairobi hospice in 1990, Anne took that formula to Kenya. It was Kampala, though, that became home for the last chapter of her life, and where she decided to set up Hospice Africa. There, Anne also helped to establish the African Palliative Care Association (2003) and the Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care in Africa (2009).
Anne was made MBE in 2003, and was posthumously conferred with Uganda's National Independence Diamond Jubilee medal.
She is survived by two nieces, Paula and Jane.
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The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Dr Anne Merriman obituary
My friend Anne Merriman, who has died aged 90, was a pioneering doctor and founder of the Hospice Africa charity, which aims to offer 'palliative care for all those in need' across the continent. While working in Singapore in the 1980s, Anne devised an affordable morphine-based painkiller, and took it to Africa in the 90s. In 1993 in Kampala, Uganda, she founded Hospice Africa, establishing a hospice model that could be adapted for other countries. By 2023, Hospice Africa had cared for more than 37,000 patients in Uganda, and today it helps provide home-based palliative care in more than 35 countries across Africa. Born in Liverpool, Anne was the third of four children of Josie (nee Dunne), a typist, and Thomas Merriman, a primary school headteacher. Aged four, Anne had opened a magazine about missionaries in Africa and told her mother she was 'going to help these children'. That conviction deepened when, at 14, she watched The Visitation, a film about medical nuns in Africa. After her secondary education at Broughton Hall Convent grammar school, Anne crossed the Irish Sea in 1954 to join the Medical Missionaries of Mary. As a young sister she studied medicine at University College Dublin, and on gaining her degree in 1963, she departed for Nigeria for the first of two postings there. In 1973 Anne left the order and returned to Liverpool to work as a consultant and senior lecturer in geriatric medicine at the David Lewis Northern hospital for four years. The hospital closed in 1978, and Anne continued to develop her compassion-driven approach to palliative care while revamping the geriatric medicine units at hospitals in Whiston and St Helens. Anne's mother was good friends with my grandmother, and our families had in common a favourite holiday cottage in the Lake District. Despite her love of that area, and her ties to Liverpool, after Josie's death in 1981 Anne moved abroad again, first to Malaysia in 1983, to take up an associate professor role in the department of public health at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, then to the National University of Singapore the following year as a senior teaching fellow. From her flat she started the volunteer-led Hospice Care Group, which became the country's Hospice Care Association. With help from the university hospital, she developed a groundbreaking formula of affordable pure oral morphine – comprising morphine powder, water and a preservative. On becoming medical director of the newly opened Nairobi hospice in 1990, Anne took that formula to Kenya. It was Kampala, though, that became home for the last chapter of her life, and where she decided to set up Hospice Africa. There, Anne also helped to establish the African Palliative Care Association (2003) and the Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care in Africa (2009). Anne was made MBE in 2003, and was posthumously conferred with Uganda's National Independence Diamond Jubilee medal. She is survived by two nieces, Paula and Jane.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Dying patients bundled into ambulances and transferred in their final hours after 'cruel' managers shut hospice without warning
Dying patients were bundled into emergency ambulances and moved in their final hours after managers shut down a hospice without warning. Nurses on duty at the Sue Ryder Wheatfields Hospice, in Leeds, were left in tears after being told to ring relatives of end-of-life patients with the distressing news that their loved ones were being immediately transferred. One nurse told the Mail she was disgusted by hospice management, who she claims sat in their offices eating an Indian takeaway while nurses scrambled to hand over their vulnerable patients to paramedics. In total, seven terminally ill residents were moved in emergency ambulances to alternative hospices across Yorkshire between 5pm and midnight on a Friday evening in August last year. Another patient was discharged home. One woman died within five hours of being moved, while another two patients had passed away within 48 hours. At least two families lodged formal complaints about their treatment in the aftermath. Recalling the distressing closure shift last summer, the female nurse told the Mail she knew nothing about the decision to shut until the angry son of a woman who was 'actively dying' started berating her about his mother's transfer. The nurse, who asked not to be named, said she had since sought treatment for depression because she felt guilty about the way several patients had been treated in their final hours. She tearfully explained: 'I was sitting at the bedside of a lady who I'd been nursing for a couple of weeks when her son came into the room and started saying, ''Call yourself a nurse, you're disgusting, how could you do this to my mum?'' 'He told me the hospice was closing immediately and his mum was being transferred in 10 minutes, he couldn't believe I didn't know anything about it. 'It was really upsetting, I was really taken aback I just didn't know what to say. 'Then one of the managers came down and confirmed it. She said it was because they didn't have enough staff, but that was not the case. We had a full compliment of doctors and nurses on that evening and over the weekend. I just started crying, it was so cruel. Within five minutes the first ambulance had arrived.' The short notice closure was the culmination of a 'chaotic' few months at the hospice, which staff alleged had become an 'unsafe and toxic' place to work because of the 'autocratic' behaviour of four of the most senior leaders – then interim service director, Sonia Clarke, head of clinical services, Victoria Hogg, head of operations, Quentin Krang, and chief nursing officer, Jane Turner. Two months later, in October last year, around 24 nurses and healthcare assistants lodged a formal grievance, via the Royal College of Nursing, with bosses at Sue Ryder, the national charity which runs the hospice with 30 per cent funding from the NHS. The hospice re-opened a month later but at least 20 staff have since left, with one lodging legal action, in the form of an employment tribunal, against the organisation. The nurses' grievance claimed the 'distressing' decision to close the unit at the 11th hour was deliberately concealed from them by managers, who then 'spun' an 'inaccurate narrative' to families of patients and local news outlets that they had no choice to do so because of staffing shortages. In reality, both medical and nursing staff levels were sufficient and instead nurses say the decision was made after whistleblowing allegations about the hospice's poor leadership had been lodged with the charity. Tracey Taylor Huckfield, the chief people and culture officer at Sue Ryder, who responded to the grievance, which was independently investigated, admitted the closure was 'distressing' because of a lack of communication with staff and that some did hear about it from relatives of a patient. She accepted the reasons for the closure communicated to families and the media 'were not the complete facts' and that 'whistleblowing concerns' had previously been raised. But she said that 'given the sensitivity and confidentiality of some matters' managers had 'no choice' but to be economical with the truth. Ms Taylor Huckfield accepted there was a lack of trust between managers and nurses, whose well-being had been neglected, and the senior leadership team did order a takeaway on the night the hospice closed because they were 'flagging.' However, she claimed all staff had been told to go and 'help themselves' if they wanted to eat. She dismissed the majority of the nurses' concerns, saying 'while this collective grievance highlights there have been issues and problems in communication, it is not considered that a serious breach of the organisation's values and behaviours has taken place.' However, nursing staff, who are being supported by whistleblowing charity Protect, were unconvinced and branded the investigation a 'whitewash.' They also lodged complaints about Sue Ryder to the Charity Commission, local Labour MP Alex Sobel, West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and the Care Quality Commission, who carried out an emergency inspection in March. The Mail understands the CQC are preparing to publish their report, which staff expect to be critical of hospice management, in the coming days. One senior nurse, who has worked in the profession for almost four decades, including 10 years at the hospice, told the Mail: 'We feel let down. We've had to fight alone to get justice for the patients, their families and the people of Leeds who rely on these services. 'Wheatfields Hospice has been all but destroyed, the majority of the experienced nurses have resigned and it lurches from one crisis to the next. The CQC have already told us that, if it were not for our tenacity, this deplorable action by Sue Ryder would have gone unnoticed by regulators. 'It's really upsetting to watch relatives whose loved ones have died or are being cared for by the hospice running marathons, climbing mountains and raising money for this charity, when the reality is large amounts of their hard-fundraised money is going on lawyers' fees as they continue to try to discredit and get rid of staff who tried to blow the whistle. We have repeatedly complained to the national leadership of Sue Ryder, who have failed us. The charity is an absolute disgrace.' James Sanderson, chief executive of Sue Ryder, told the Mail the 'difficult decision' to close Wheatfields Hospice was made for 'patient safety reasons.' He claimed that the grievance, although not upheld, highlighted poor communication between senior leaders and nursing staff which has since been improved by the installation of a new management team. 'The decision (to close) was not taken lightly as we were acutely aware of the impact this would have on our patients, but we were left with no other option,' he said. 'Every healthcare setting must adhere to strict, safe staffing levels and we were unable to meet these due to sickness, vacancies and an investigation into the behaviours and working practices of some employees. 'We received and responded to two complaints from families whose loved ones had to be moved from the hospice and apologised for the distress. 'We stand by our decision to temporarily close. We will not compromise on patient safety.' A spokesman for the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board said they were 'aware' of last August's closure, adding that they were working closely with Sue Ryder and were involved in 'decisions' about patient care to ensure it was of the highest quality. The CQC said they 'will publish our findings once our standard factual accuracy and quality assurance processes are complete.'
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
Three women charged over newborn's death in female genital mutilation case
Three women in Gambia have been charged over the death of a one-month-old girl who had undergone female genital mutilation, the police said. The child's death is the first such case since the country stopped short of reversing a ban on the practice last year. The West African nation banned female genital cutting in 2015, but the country was rocked by a renewed debate about the practice last year following the first prosecutions of female cutters. It was the first time the practice — also known as female circumcision and outlawed in many nations — was publicly discussed. Eventually, the Gambian parliament upheld the ban, but many say the practice continues in secrecy. Three women were charged on Tuesday under the ban, the Women's (Amendment) Act 2015. One woman is facing life imprisonment, and the other two were charged as accomplices. 'Preliminary findings indicate the child was allegedly subjected to circumcision and later developed severe bleeding,' the police said in a separate statement on Sunday, following the infant's death. 'She was rushed to Bundung Maternal and Child Health Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.' The United Nations estimates that about 75 per cent of women in Gambia have been subjected as young girls to the procedure known by its initials FGM, which includes partial or full removal of a girl's external genitalia. The World Health Organisation says it's a form of torture. More than 200 million women and girls across the world are survivors of FGM, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to U.N. estimates. In the past eight years alone, some 30 million women globally have been cut, most of them in Africa but also in Asia and the Middle East, UNICEF said last year. The procedure, typically performed by older women or traditional community practitioners, is often done with tools such as razor blades and can cause serious bleeding, death and complications later in life, including in childbirth. Supporters of the procedure argue that cutting is rooted in Gambia's culture and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Religious conservatives behind the campaign to reverse the ban described cutting as 'one of the virtues of Islam.' Those against FGM said its supporters are seeking to curtail women's rights in the name of tradition. The chair of the National Human Rights Commission, Emmanuel Daniel Joof, called the incident 'a national wake-up call and added: 'Our task now is clear: enforce it (the law) fully and fairly, without fear or favour.' Civil society groups expressed 'sorrow and outrage' over the death of the one-month-old girl. 'Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done, to send a strong message that the rights and lives of girls in The Gambia are not negotiable,' the Banjul-based Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice said. However, the collective Concerned Citizens called on the Gambian government to stop targeting female circumcisers. 'The people of The Gambia have consistently expressed, through various lawful means, their opposition to the ban and have instructed their elected Members of Parliament to repeal the said prohibition,' they said in a statement.
