"We found out that the concept of hospice was unknown, people were afraid and we needed to educate the public, explain what it was. And so last month, December 1995, we kept the hospice closed yet, we organized an open day and let the public in. We showed group after group round like in a castle, from the attic to the basement, with commentary, explaining what the hospice was. That way we scored our own goal... The word got around about what it was like, single rooms with extra beds for relatives, imagine, you press a button, the bed goes up, down, sits down, lies down... It was a novelty here then, it's common now, but back then in hospitals there were metal, ugly beds. The facilities we have today we didn't even know, so the news spread by word of mouth. On top of that [there were] amazing nurses and we were inundated with a huge amount of applications but not for medically indicated patients. People wanted to move all their elderly people into our hospice immediately, empty out their old people´s homes and move them to us. This was not possible because the hospice was the only one in the country at that time, with twenty-six beds only, so within a week it would have been full for next five years. We had to explain that it was for people at the end of life with a clear fatal prognosis in a short time. We tried to explain all this in the early days. For the first two years, actually, I was at the hospice day and night until it was running well. Then I let it go because there was a need to keep helping somewhere else. I haven´t built any of the hospices step by step, not even the first one, but I can say that my fingerprints would be found in all of all the eighteen hospices around the country in the form of advice, passing on experiences, lectures."
"I had a phone call in my medical office: 'State Security speaking, come tomorrow at eight o'clock to number seven.' But I really didn't understand what number seven, so I asked, 'Where, to Prague 7?'. So they explained that it was street Bartolomějská 7 [headquarters of State Security at that time, trans.]. I was supposed to be so educated to understand immediately, that ‘number seven’ meant street Bartolomějská 7. But I really hadn´t understood, so that´s why I asked where to in Prague 7. So they explained me that it was street Bartolomějská 7. I didn't even tell my husband, who wouldn't sleep because of worries, I told myself I would tell him when I got back. I told a few friends in case I didn't come back, so that my husband would know where to look for me. And [I told] also the deputy director of the health center, she was a decent doctor. I told her that I wasn´t going to start working in the surgery at eight o'clock because I had to go [to police]. The nurse was alone in our office, and she told me later that the deputy director called the office every hour during the morning to see if I was back already. It was clear that I might not come back, that it could be bad. It was an experience for me. It wasn´t pleasant at all when the big door slammed behind me, first, second, third door, and then a corridor. The interrogation lasted, approximately, three hours, but I had already been experienced then. Father Ladislav Kubíček taught me, a doctor and priest in one person,he had been my confessor and teacher for almost thirty years. He brought us to be truthful, a lie wasn´t accepted, and this paid off very well for me. I really turned for help to the Holy Spirit, I didn't have to lie and they didn't learn anything from me anyway. On the contrary, they learned a lesson, they heard what they didn´t like to hear, and didn´t get what they wanted to know."
"Of course, I do not agree with euthanasia, but I do not agree with suicide either. But I think the motive is important. In the case of Jan Palach, it wasn´t suicide committed of despair, but he approached it as a sacrifice. That's how I saw it. It's a loss of a young life, but his motive was fair, and I believe that's how the Lord will judge it. That he won't see it as throwing life at his feet, because life is a great gift, but that it was a sacrifice. Jesus also sacrificed himself on the cross, even though he could have got away with it. All he had to do was simply say, 'I am not the son of God.' He sacrificed his life, the motive is crucial."
"It really wasn't easy for me. I was aware that I didn´t deserve it, because hospices are not my work, they are not, I am really convinced of it, they are not human work, they are God's work. If it was human work, it would have failed long ago in those conditions. That´s firstly. And if I were to admit that someone deserves an award, it would have to be for everyone involved in the hospice, all the staff, the nurses, the doctors, the orderlies, everyone who serves there. So it was very hard for me to go to the Castle to get the award that belongs to everybody. I struggled a lot, I even went to Cardinal Vlk at the time and I thought he would support me, based on humility principle, but he said, 'No, you can't refuse it.' I know I told him even then that when I come to the heaven´s door it would be a burden, and he said, 'Don't worry, you'll leave it below. ' So in the end he said I couldn't refuse it, that it was very important for the idea of hospice, to promote it, to raise the awareness, and that I had to go through it. So I did. My brother was there with me, and he made it a little bit easier. Of course, meeting President Havel in person was a strong experience."
"Sure, the threat [of euthanasia] is there, I have no illusions that one day it won't be there. It depends on who we will elect next time, there are some parties all for it, all the Pirates are said to be for euthanasia, so if we elect the Pirates they can vote for it. It would be the same with an abortion law, if the law was here. It will depend on everybody´s moral sense, to decide whether to apply it or not. But I am glad that there is an alternative. I don't have to get killed because there is a hospice where they can manage my pain, shortness of breath, they will take care of me. I don't have to suffer from unbearable pain and I can live my whole life to its end."
Marie Svatošová was born on 20 November 1942 to Marie and Jan Maršík. Her Catholic family were always active in their faith, and this was also the reason why she and her siblings had difficulties while trying to get an education. However, she eventually managed to make her dream true and graduate from secondary medical school and later from medical faculty in Hradec Králove. She started her first job in the summer of 1968 at the hospital in Semily, where she experienced great disappointment as the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops was going on. Two years later she left for Prague, where she got married and worked as a general practitioner. At a time of a personal crisis in 1975 she met Ladislav Kubíček, a doctor, and also a priest, who had a profound effect on her life. After his murder in 2004, she wrote a book about his difficult fate, Until the Blood Is Shed. Even before the end of totalitarian regime, she got acquainted with the ideas of the hospice care movement in England and after the Velvet Revolution she began to put them into practice. In 1995 she was behind the opening of the first Czech Hospice of Agnes of Bohemia in Červený Kostelec. As President of the Association of Hospice and Palliative Care Providers, she was involved in establishing many other Czech and Moravian hospices and she continues to promote the idea of hospice care tirelessly. She is also the author of a number of books regarding living in faith and dying well. Marie Svatošová is a laureate of several state awards. She lived in Prague at the time of filming.
Marie Svatošová, graduation photo board, 4th row from the top, 4th from the left. Top left, headmistress Votýpková, next to her class teacher Propilková. 1961
Marie Svatošová, graduation photo board, 4th row from the top, 4th from the left. Top left, headmistress Votýpková, next to her class teacher Propilková. 1961
