ABSTRACT
This chapter centers on exploring the process by which Karuna Hospice Service (KHS) successfully responded to and overcame the obstacles to establishing a service with a difference. The intent is to make a contribution to the international body of literature on hospice development through the local, ad hoc insights on KHS’s formation. In short, KHS, like other successful hospice projects, managed to convince other individuals and institutions to provide the resources necessary for its existence, such as money, legal entitlements and public support. As outlined in the discussion on the description of KHS’s difference, many of the spiritual and attitudinal values held both by the original and present members of KHS hinge on these concerns about simplicity, egalitarianism, holism, interdisciplinarity and the nurturing of relationships. The participants clearly saw the original director to be a charismatic leader, the moving force behind the establishment of the KHS.
