Two months ago, my brother Michael Jenkins died at St Peter's Hospice, Knowle.

His passing is still very raw to me but I can only give thanks in the knowledge that he spent his final days in surroundings which had not only become a haven to him, but one in which his fears were understood by staff (including all the volunteers) who knew him and cared for him with great love and compassion right up until he took his final breath.

This compassion was also extended to my husband and I who were given the opportunity of being by his side, until the end, in peaceful and loving surroundings.

About the same time as my brother died, my husband received a letter from Sandie Foxall-Smith, the chief executive of St Peter's Hospice, informing him that the hospice in Knowle was closing due to lack of funds.

You have no idea how upsetting we found this letter, firstly because we had just experienced the care St Peter's provides first hand, but also because we had come to know the staff and the patients so well during that time.

My brother attended the day hospice every Friday. Having accompanied him on a couple of occasions, I saw first hand what a close mutual bond was formed between the Friday group. It was a place where they could talk about their concerns with each other or just talk about anything but their concerns! In the final weeks, Mike hardly had the strength to get himself ready for his day at the hospice, but he would do his utmost to make it there just so that he could speak to the team who knew him and understood his fears.

My heart goes out to those day patients who will now have to travel up to nine additional miles to the St Peter's hospice in Brentry. I don't believe the chief executive of St Peter's understands what impact an additional nine miles will have on someone who is so very ill and already struggling with daily life.

Even if volunteer drivers are still willing to ferry patients across town, the physical and mental strain on them will probably be more than they can cope with.

Please don't think that I am favouring the Knowle hospice above Brentry. Brentry hospice provided the same level of care and comfort for my brother on his first ever in-patient stay. My only concern is for the people now, and in the future, who are in need of their local hospice.

I am not naive enough to believe that this letter will change the course of events. My concerns are that "money" again takes precedent above the needs of people. I just wonder, however, would greater media coverage on the financial plight of St Peter's have changed the course of events – or was the deal already "done and dusted"?

I found a statistic on a St Peter's Hospice website which stated that an estimated 4,000 people each year contract some form of cancer. If this is correct, surely our need to provide more hospice facilities rather than closing them is paramount.

What sad times we live in?

Ann Smith, Address supplied.

● YOU covered last week the story of the closure of St Peter's Hospice in Knowle. The hospice provides excellent care for people at the most vulnerable time of their life – the weeks before they die.

While the closure has been known for some time, it does seem that the case for closure has become weaker with time. Some people feel that the closure is being driven by a change in business model, rather than building cost issues.

The organisation wants to move the provision to Brentry on the northern fringe of the city. This will have a very detrimental effect on those terminally ill people in south Bristol who would rely on the care provided by St Peter's Hospice.

It will certainly make visiting relatives in the last days of their lives more difficult. It is not so long ago that the organisation was arguing, quite rightly, that it needed to set up the hospice in Brentry because just having a location south of the river was not good enough for city-wide coverage. I believe that is as true now as it was a few years ago.

It isn't too late for St Peter's Hospice to reconsider its decision to close the Knowle hospice, and I hope that the organisation will look at the serious loss it would be to terminally ill people in south Bristol, and so change their minds.

Mark Wright, Liberal Democrat challenger for Bristol South.

● IT is unfortunate, but not at all surprising, to see the depths to which Gary Hopkins will sink to make cheap political points (Open Lines, September 10). Had he bothered to turn up to Save Our Hospice's recent public meeting along with myself, Dawn Primarolo and many others, he would have seen that local people want us to work together, across political divides, on this most sensitive of issues.

Advances in palliative care and continued investment in services mean that the majority of people with terminal illnesses prefer to spend their last days at home, and this is now possible in more and more cases. Where care at home is not possible, or not the wish of the patient, residential care still has a crucial role to play. That is why it is so important to retain in-patient provision in our part of the city, alongside the goodwill of scores of local South Bristol people who volunteer for St Peters.

Politicians from all parties have united to work with St Peter's to ensure that we have replacement, high quality residential hospice care in south Bristol. Rather than attempt to engage with that discussion, Cllr Hopkins prefers to spend his time firing off inaccurate, misleading and petty letters. Let us hope that not all of his colleagues are quite so immature.

It is also noticeable that Cllr Hopkins refers to Dawn as "health minister", a position she has not held since June of this year.

Cllr Helen Holland, Leader of the Labour Group, Bristol City Council.

● WHEN Save Our Hospice met the chief executive and vice chair of St Peter's Hospice on August 19 to discuss the planned closure of the Knowle hospice, they made it clear that they were "moving away from the bricks and mortar concept of a hospice". They said that because most people want to die in their own home, they want to expand the services they provide for people living at home or in care homes.

This is fine, so long as it doesn't come at the cost of losing a very good hospice with 10 beds. Our group is very aware of the excellent services provided by both of the hospices in Bristol, because it includes people who are currently using those services and friends of people who benefited immensely from those services.

Two of my friends have died in St Peter's hospices, one in Knowle and the other in Brentry.

Both had a long battle with cancer and on occasions when the pain became unbearable, they were very relieved to be admitted as an in-patient for a few days to have their pain relief re-adjusted.

Both were single people and although they had friends and relatives around them, they really appreciated being able to meet and talk with other people in similar circumstances during day hospice sessions. Both of them needed specialist care and were able to die in peace and dignity at the hospice.

This is the kind of care that we fear many people in and around Bristol will be unable to access when the Knowle hospice closes.

The management of St Peter's say they would rather spend £300,000 on providing care services than on repairing and improving the Knowle hospice, which they say is "not fit for purpose".

We find it difficult to understand why they do not appear to value something that means so much to the local community.

During the meeting the vice chair suggested that we should check the dictionary definition of a hospice. I did, and this is what my New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary says: "A home for the destitute or sick, spec. a nursing-home for the care of the dying".

Perhaps the Post could invite local people to give their views of what they think a hospice should be.

Hilary Saunders, Clifton.

● LIKE all old buildings, maintenance is high but a considerable amount of money was spent last year on upgrading IPU, replacement windows, roof, day hospice conservatory etc. That money has been wasted so it might just as well have been "lost", as it is understood would have happened if it had not been spent.

This work was carried out before the current chief executive took office – draw your own conclusions.

Nothing more has been heard about a hospice at Hengrove, so it can be assumed this will not happen.

Doubtless plans are well in hand for the disposal of Knowle hospice, which is why no effort was made by the trustees to save it.

The day hospice volunteers may well have "forced their hand" to let the people of Bristol know what was happening before they intended to.

S Merrick, Clifton.

● I FULLY appreciated the value of the St Peter's Hospice in Knowle when a friend spent the last weeks of his life there, earlier on this year.

His family were full of praise for the care and attention that he and they received from staff and volunteers at the hospice.

The fact that the hospice was nearby, within walking distance of their home, was a huge bonus. If they had had to travel to Brentry, relying on lifts or the bus, it would have been much more stressful.

I am very sad to think that this hospice could close and am sure that the people of Bristol would willingly raise the necessary funds to keep it open.

South Bristol needs a hospice.

Sue Burr, By email.