Nurses who are drawn to death

Rian Venter is a palliative care nurse in South Africa and director of West Gauteng Hospice. "Everyone has a right to a better quality life in their final days,” he says. (VOA / D. Taylor)

West Gauteng Hospice (above) is in the mining district of industrial Krugersdorp. Wits Hospice also offers similar palliative care in a facility tucked among the mansions and Lamborghinis of Johannesburg's plush suburb of Houghton. (VOA / D. Taylor)

Jack Kieser is a cancer patient at West Gauteng Hospice. He sits in a room surrounded by toys left by the families of children who died at the hospice. (VOA / D. Taylor)

Nurses give primary care to terminal patients at Soweto's Diepkloof. A psychologist says, " ... death is a gift; accepting it is a gift. Allowing it to be a gift is what we offer patients and their families." (VOA / D. Taylor)

Nurses Duduzile Tlhapane (left) and Rachel Mabena meet inside a children’s ward in Soweto's Diepkloof Hospice. Tlhapane says she inspires her patients to “kick against death, even if your muscles are locked up tight.” (VOA/ D. Taylor)

Patience Machetu recalls the bitterness of a man whose wife was dying. He asked the nurse "... why would God give her such a burden of having this kind of disease?’” (VOA / D. Taylor)

“We are not here to fix things," said psychologist Cameron Hogg. "We are not here to cure. ... What we can do is to support them to have a better (death) experience.” (VOA / D. Taylor)