THE wife of a former patient at Kemp Hospice, in Kidderminster, has paid tribute to its care for her husband - and highlighted the much-needed benefits from a planned £2.2m expansion.

Julie Ashfield's husband John died, aged 54, in January last year, 14 months after being diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour.

At first, he was cared for by Mrs Ashfield at their Kidderminster home, but the strain of looking after the increasingly immobile 15-stone company director, coupled with the emotional stress, took its toll on her.

It was the Macmillan district nurses who first suggested the couple should think about using Kemp's facilities - to give them both a break.

"After about six months it was beginning to get us both down. So we went along for a day in June, 2000. Everybody was very welcoming and very sweet," she said.

Mr Ashfield started visiting the hospice most weeks. "He had physiotherapy, aromatherapy, and a few other treatments. He had a bit of a chat to other people there, a meal and a rest.

"He had a laugh and made the most of it."

Tolerable

Many of the facilities that the new, bigger hospice should provide by 2004 - including counselling, information services and specialist care - would have made the Ashfields' lives more tolerable.

"There's no one source of information - it's a hard slog to find out how to fight the cancer."

She added: "I had to keep going for the family and it's quite tough. It would have been helpful for me to be able to unload to somebody."

As Mr Ashfield's condition deteriorated, in-patient services at Kemp would have transformed the time he had left.

"A few weeks before he died the hospital in Birmingham said they had stabilised him and that he might have a few more months, but I could not look after him at home.

"He was due to go in to a hospice in Stourbridge on the Monday, but he died on the Saturday. I think he thought "I don't want to go there."

"He wanted to be with people he knew. If Kemp had had some beds it would have been wonderful.

"When you get to know familiar faces it's so important."