Jonnie Irwin revealed his preconceived notions about hospice care before he experienced it.
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, the A Place In The Sun host said he was given “months” to live last year.
Before spreading to his brain, the 49-year-old was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2020.
Jonnie spoke on BBC One’s Morning Live on July 24 to talk about his hospice and palliative care experiences and how his opinions have changed.
The TV star told Helen Skelton and Gethin Jones that he had a “up day” and that his family was doing “fine” after three years of palliative care.
‘Palliative care is the care you’re given when the doctors think you won’t recover. I’ve been in palliative care from day one,’ he shared, outlining that palliative care can take ‘many guises’, including support in a hospice.
‘My hospice is a delight actually. I wouldn’t say it’s like a hotel, but it’s like a very nice private hospital,’ he stated.
‘My perception of a hospice was very much a boiling hot room full of people that look frail and towards the end of their days. This is nothing of the sort. It’s spacious, energised, comfortable. It’s even got a jacuzzi bath, en suite rooms.
‘The staff are just amazing. I’ve had a really good experience of my hospice.’
Jonnie, who has three daughters with Jessica Holmes, was asked for guidance for parents in similar situations.
‘First of all, embrace it,’ he said, explaining that his first experience of palliative care came when he was invited to do a blood transfusion in a hospice as a day patient, where he was placed in a ‘lovely room’ with a table full of biscuits.
‘I implore people to check out the hospice – if you’ve got the choice of using it, then use it,’ he stated.
‘You have a right to a choice of a hospice if you so wish, I would encourage people to at least explore that option, because it’s not this doom and gloom operation that you might think it was.’
Jonnie, who has three daughters with Jessica Holmes, was asked for guidance for parents in similar situations.
‘It’s not a withdrawal of care, it’s a redirection of care,’ he explained, highlighting that palliative care is about changing the focus from curing a condition to making sure that people are as comfortable as possible, providing them with the ‘best quality of life for however long you have left’.
‘It’s not a one-way street, as some people may imagine,’ he added.
Dr. Ranj said palliative care is “financed largely by the NHS,” although charities cover part and some patients pay for private care.
Jonnie said that the NHS and local authorities pay a third of his hospice, which is mostly privately funded.
He noted that if it’s exclusively relying on the NHS, it’s ‘probably a basic service they provide’, thus fundraising efforts reach millions.
Morning Live airs weekdays at 9.15am on BBC One.
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