Sister Frances Dominica Ritchie

Sister Frances Dominica Ritchie, FRC is a British nurse, specializing in palliative care.

Early life
Though religion was a large part of her upbringing in Edinburgh, where her grandfather was an elder of the Church of Scotland, from the age of three she wanted to be a nurse. .

As a child she nursed her brother, David Ritchie, who was five-and-a-half years younger than her and was born with one lung. She had to go and visit her brother at Great Ormond Street lots of times. She went on to attend the Cheltenham Ladies' College.

Helen House Hospice
She chose palliative care "because of an encounter with two-year-old Helen, who had surgery for a cerebral tumour and was cared for at home in a comatose state". Sister Frances took the little girl into her own home from time to time to give her parents a break from caring. From this she went on to found Helen House in Oxford, the world’s first hospice for children, where she is still a trustee.

In January 2007, the documentary series, The Children of Helen House, began airing on BBC2.

Douglas House
She went on to found Douglas House, a "respice" for people between 16 and 40 with life-shortening conditions, which was opened by HM The Queen in 2004 and which is built in the same grounds as Helen House. Both houses offer respite care, accompanied by members of the family if they so choose, end-of-life care, and family support from the time of referral for as many years after the death of the young person as the family may wish.

Trivia
She was a guest on the BBC radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs.

Links

 * Timesonline.co.uk