The Principle of Social Justice in Promoting Civic Initiatives in the Hospice Movement According to Patients' Families

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of social justice in promoting civic initiatives as instanced by hospice fellowships in the opinion of patients' families. The principle of justice decides about the shape of social order, therefore it is strictly connected with state activity with regard to law-making and public institutions. The hospice movement is anchored in local communities; it takes responsibility to help the dying to live a dignified life of the human person. Now the state's task, of whichwe speak in the first part of the paper, is to provide such conditions that civic fellowships could take and develop palliative support. The second part of the study presents some opinions of the patients' families with regard to civic initiatives. The analysis has shown that most of the closest relatives of the terminaly ill treat the fellowships that help the dying as an effect of social initiatives. Any activities that make up multidimensional support, voluntary activity, and various organisational forms of supportive centres have been defined as the most important manifestation of civily liberty.