A French hospital has plans to open a wine bar for its terminally ill patients in a bid to help them improve their quality of life, offering them a chance to experience moments "of sharing and conviviality”.
Aside from hosting “medically supervised” wine tastings, the bar will also serve up whisky and champagne provided by sponsors and through partnerships.
The bar, which will be located at the palliative care centre of the Clermont-Ferrand hospital in southwestern France, is scheduled to open its doors in September, a statement from the hospital said.
The head of the unit that proposed the idea, Dr. Virginie Guastella, said she came up with the plan because she felt that terminally ill patients should “have the right to enjoy themselves”.
“It’s a way of rethinking the care of others, taking into account the feelings and emotions that make them a human being,” Guastella told the Local, a Paris-based news site.
The wine bar project was launched "in an attempt to restore longing, taste, desire and even pleasure” to patients who are coming to the end of their lives, she added, France 24 reports.