History of St. Christopher's

The current inpatient unit is situated on a beautiful four acre woodland site at Loretto Road, Cavan, (kindly donated by the Loretto order of nuns), St. Christophers became the home of the only dedicated palliative of care inpatient facility in the entire Northeast region.

Since St. Christopher’s Hospice welcomed our first patient through its doors, we have been continuously striving to develop our residential services for the people of Cavan and Monaghan. To date services have been limited to respite care and our ambition has always been to develop the facility into a fully-fledged specialist hospice, available in so many other parts of Ireland. For years now demand for hospice services has been running ahead of capacity to meet the changing needs of patients presenting for treatment and respite.

Thankfully, the very successful Home Care Service established by the Health Service Executive has for a long time been treating cancer patients in their own homes where possible and is very much appreciated by all concerned. However, in circumstances where this is not possible or appropriate (e.g. the need for a higher level of care or due to individual patient circumstances) hospice residential care has become necessary in order to address the complex care needs of patients receiving end of life care.

To address this and to further enhance services at St. Christopher’s, plans are now at an advanced stage for extension of the existing hospice building. We plan to add 16 palliative specialist care bedrooms and accommodation for treatments and medical services which will be on a par with those available in hospices such as Harold’s Cross Dublin and St. Francis’ in Raheny. This will enable us achieve our twin objective to (1) provide the very HIGHEST LEVEL OF CARE available in Ireland for people with a life limiting illness. And (2) have respite available for more patients in order to temporarily relieve stressed carers.