ThembaCare Grabouw provides a 7-bed hospice in-patient facility for adults who are terminally ill and whose lives have been devastated by HIV/AIDS and TB. It is the only overnight medical care in the town. To complement the in-patient facility ThembaCare also has a team of community care workers who visit various discharged patients and other referrals in their homes every morning.

Friday, April 20, 2012

April News

This month we would like to ask you to pray for one of our inpatients. She is a patient we have been assisting since we first opened our doors and is currently in because her second line of ARVs (HIV treatment) is failing and she is suffering badly There are only two lines of ARV medication available through the government healthcare system and once a patient has become resistant to those (either by failing to take the medication regularly or by the drugs just not being powerful enough) then they are only offered other treatments in extremely special cases. Without access to effective ARVs this woman, who is only 36 years old and still has small children at home has very little hope.It is a very sad situation.

The syringe drivers that were donated by Dr Niall continue to be a huge blessing. Another patient has been able to use them and we are delighted to say that he has been able to be discharged home with oral morphine.

We have also been very pleased to be able to show lots of new volunteers the community as they have been going out on daily rounds with our outpatient carers. It is good to be able to expose people from different countries and walks of life to the work that we do and the difficult situations so many of our patients have to deal with in their daily lives. We hope that their experiences will enable them to understand about our challenges and share about the positive work we do here in Grabouw for Thembalitsha.