Abstract · In order to provide a humane end-of-life service for seriously ill patients there is a need for an accepting and open social context alongside up-to-date professional expertise. Developing hospice and palliative care begins with shaping attitudes because in the absence of an open and accepting approach neither the dying patient nor their family benefit from the high level professional expertise. The Hungarian Hospice Foundation launched the Field of Dignity Programme in Autumn 2007 to shape attitudes through organising public events connected with planting and growing daffodils as symbols of hope. These events draw attention to the need for active solidarity towards dying people. We adopted the traditions of the decades-old British programme through the mediation of Polish colleagues, and extended it through developing pedagogical programmes for schools, accredited teacher training programmes and providing consultancy for teachers. The success of the programme, launched in 2007 in Budapest and Debrecen, demonstrates not only the enthusiasm of the participants, with the events attracting a wide range of publicity, but also the involvement of 20 municipalities, 42 schools and 25 supporting companies besides the Hungarian hospice organisations by 2010. However, the most important result was the grassroots-initiated launch of the home hospice service in Debrecen in 2009. The success of the programme proves that reinforcing the movement character of hospice work could provide the civil conditions for the professional development of hospice work and it gives strength to our confidence that the long term running of Field of Dignity Programme serves the case of dying patients.

Abstract · We have all experienced how much it means to have an understanding person beside us, someone who listens, who gives a helping hand or some encouraging words, when our life comes to a turning point, trial or crisis. This is even more important in the last major stage of our life, hence every artwork, including our own life, has an extremely important act of ending. As a spiritual counsellor accompanying old people, I experience the unrealistic state of death every day. Most people see it as an enemy; they are afraid of it and avoid talking about it as long as they can. Death is inevitable, but it depends on us how we live with it. It is our last big task. By thinking about it and preparing for it, we might find out something about life’s and death’s inseparable fruitful secret. In the spiritual accompaniment of a person preparing to die, mortality, the fate of the body and soul after death, the ancient, ineradicable desire for immortality, the search for the meaning of life and the experience of transcendence are basic topics, in the maze of which spiritual guides can only help if they themselves are seekers: They do not give answers, but as companions, they help those they guide to find their own answers. Below I present some aspects of the Christian pastoral approach to the problems before death occurs: humanity, inner peace, desire for completeness, sin: the deterioration of our relationships and the following disorder in our lives, and confrontation with death are inexhaustible topics. This study does not engage in responses, solutions, or theological discourses, its purpose is merely to enhance further individual thinking.

Abstract · Abstract· One of the most important debates of today's young adult literature concerns the depiction of the major problems of life in young adult novels. There is a series of examples which justify the existence of a problem-oriented young adult literature. However, in Hungary - to the best of our knowledge - there have not been any young adult hospice-themed novels written and published yet. In connection with my previous research, I took on the Hungarian translation and publishing of the hospice-themed youth novel Eine Hand zum Anfassen (Hungarian: Szorítsd meg a kezem!) by the Austrian author Renate Welsh. The protagonist of the story, a 14-year-old Austrian girl, leads the reader to a hospice facility in England, and to the world of her dying grandmother and her fellows. The readers can become a part of this world through a strange summer holiday. By experiencing the catharsis of the novel, they can understand the commandments of hospice love.

The objective of this analysis is to demonstrate the aesthetic and ethical values of the novel, and provoke the thoughts of the readers by presenting a wide series of quotes.

Abstract · Suffering breaks us out of our daily routine, does not let us evaluate our life as a final reality, and frees us from our false illusions. Approaching death, we reevaluate our life. Based on a psychologically credible description, we can trace the attitude to death from the perspective of a patient and his environment.

Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich between 1884 and 1886, based on a true story. The protagonist of the story is a middle-class high-court judge who is shocked by his own and his social environment's lies while suffering from cancer. In Tolstoy's interpretation, it is not suffering and death which are the most terrifying things, but rather a life full of lies and false roles.