November News

Who can believe that another year has come to the end? With lots of challenges for the year especially the IPU: We had 61 new admissions for the year this is except for those how had been re-admitted into the IPU and 13 deaths. The sad part is 2 of the ladies who died were on our books the longest - but no amount of education/love/care could stop the illness. There are so many out there that needs our love and care and our Home-based Care ladies have a great task to see to them and their needs.

To the many volunteers that visited our project and went on rounds with our Home Based Care ladies this year we want to thank each and every one. We pray that you will take with you the knowledge and empower others around the world with what you have experience and fist hand seen.

ThembaCare also put on a fresh coat of paint in the interior and we look really smart for the festive season.

To our loyal staff we wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas and that the new year will be full of blessings.

October News

The inpatient unit continues to ebb and flow with patients. Earlier this month we had only three patients, now we are full again including caring for a mother of a former Village of Hope child. She is in a very bad way with what has been diagnosed as cancer and we are doing our best to make her as comfortable as possible. We sadly lost one of our patients early this month.

The outpatient carers are still on their normal routine in the community providing hope through caring for those in need, with day-to-day challenges. We also have had some volunteers who dedicated their time to assist in the community by accompanying the carers on their rounds.

The HIV counseling and testing team goes out at least 6 times in a month to the local businesses and farms to test the staff. Huge thanks goes to the driver, Johan, from Village of Hope, who compromises everything to make sure the two counsellors arrive to the farms and businesses safely.

Our staff enjoyed themselves at the year-end staff party, which was held at KwaMzoli’s in Gugulethu Cape Town. This is a township restaurant famouse for its braai (BBQ). Some staff also receives certificates for hard working and for going that extra mile and it’s great that they are recognised for this.

September News

This month we were honoured to have two teams of cyclists in two countries completing Thembaltisha’s Cycle To The Sea bike challenge in order to raise funds for a back-up power generator for our project. On Friday 13 September a team of Thembalitsha staff and volunteers set off from our facility and cycled 200km over three days to get to Cape Aguhlas (the most southern point in Africa). Most of the team were not experienced cyclists and this was a big challenge for them in nasty weather but the teams spirits were high and they achieved their goal with smiles on their faces. 

At the same time a team of eight cyclists in the UK also completed a Cycle To The Sea challenge. The cycled 100 miles in a day from Henley to Brighton! We would like to thank both teams for this extraordinary effort on our behalf. We are still waiting to find out the total amount raised but even if we don’t have enough money to get the generator now we are a lot closer to getting it now than we were a couple of weeks ago!

August News

Life at a hospice is always a rollercoaster of highs and lows. It is to be expected that, being involved in this kind of service, we will experience patients die. However the experience never becomes easier to handle and this month we lost four inpatients in the space of just one week! We can take comfort in the fact that we provided each one with love and care in their last days but sometimes it is hard not to be sad.

We have happily been able to make some improvements to our building thanks to a local funder and now have some neat and tidy new flooring throughout the unit as well as a wonderful container outside for file archiving. In the near future we will also be adding a sluice room and more storage in order to meet the standard required by HPCA (Hospice Palliative Care Association) for a 3-star award. It is good to see our premises improving and becoming more professional.

All our carers got some added sparkle on Women’s Day by having some refreshing juice given to us by Appletiser which was wonderful.

Please keep our Sister Portia in your prayers as she is in recovery from an operation and remember those in the community who are suffering with all the cape storms we have been experiencing this winter. Many trees have fallen squashing house and lots of homes have been flooded.

July News

Pineview students washing cars for Mandela Day

This month here in South Africa we are encouraged to mark Mandela Day by giving back 67 minutes to our community. Of course, here at ThembaCare we give back to the community anyway but we were very touched by some other local organisations who decided to help us out with their 67 minutes of service. Pineview school came to wash cars and tidy the garden, Groenberg school donated a lovely quilt and R1007! The local rugby club came and made us lunch and helped to feed our patients and the Moravian church came to pray with our patients for 67 minutes. It is days like Mandela day when we really realise the power of the community and the potential we have to make a difference by working together for good. Thank you so much to everyone who came to bless us. It made a huge difference to us!

HCT team make local farm visits....

our HCT team at auldearn farm last week

as you may be aware thembacare grabouw offers three services to our community, firstly we have a seven bed inpatient unit which provides the only overnight care beds for a town of around 60,000 people many who are in desperate need of end of life hospice care. secondly our outpatient team care for over 450 people who are living with HIV and or TB in our local community, their daily/weekly visits ensure that people continue with their TB, or understand their HIV, medication to enable them to live a long and productive life and thirdly we have our very own testing and counselling service which enables people to test for HIV, TB, high blood pressure and sugars etc.

we have recently been looking at how we can make the third arm, our HCT (HIV counselling and testing) more effective. we have a converted caravan, which is fully equipped to provide a mobile service, and this is often seen in the community at public open spaces and schools to allow people to come have a chat and maybe even find out their status for those various areas but we really wanted to enable more people to test, so what better place to do that than at the work place.

over the last month we have visited some of the staff at the huge fruit packing sheds which surround the town and last week we made visits to a couple of farms who's managers were keen to help their staff understand more about living with HIV. for us it's so important that people know their status, once this is known then we can help them to start addressing areas of their lives that need to change and also seek professional medical advice if they do find that they have a bigger medical need.

if you would like to find out more about this service then do call our thembacare grabouw office and they will be able to set up a date for us to either bring the caravan to your farm or make a visit to your facility, please note that we are sorry but this is currently limited to the grabouw and elgin region, we aren't able to offer this amazing service nationally or even internationally as yet!

June News

This has been a quiet month for TCG. Maybe it’s because the winter is here and we had a lot of rain and strong wind here in Grabouw…but our work does not stop! Two of our carers are busy with the ENA course we are glad for them but sad to see them go.

We are happy to announce that our local doctors Van der Vyfer and Albertyn have taken TCG under their wing and are volunteering to do hospice rounds on the first Thursday of each month. This is a fantastic gift to us to have access to their skills and knowledge so regularly. Something that otherwise we don’t have the funds for and it it yet another wonderful example of people from the community pulling together to support us.  They are just a phone call away so it’s making work so much easier for our In Patient Unit. Thank you!

May News

Eva

This month was not a good month for ThembaCare. Two of our carers were in a vehicle accident and were hospitalised with minor injuries and are still experience some pain.

It also with great sadness that we have to say farewell to one of our staff members who pass away on 13 May 2013. Eva Manho was one of the IPU night duty carers. She is leaving behind 1 son and 4 daughters as well as grand children. This is a first for ThembaCare Grabouw to lose a beloved staff member. Please keep our staff in your prayers in the coming weeks.

Aside from this loss, we are busy working towards our 3 star preparations for HPCA. This involves writing of more policies but also implementing them. We want to thank Ayanda from HPCA for the mentoring towards this.

April News

March at ThembaCare Grabouw as usual was a flurry of activity especially with the Easter Public Holidays. ThembaCare Grabouw received many blessings in terms of lots of Easter eggs & hot cross buns for the staff and our patients. The pre-school children at Spielland Pre-School gave our staff and patients Easter eggs. It is so heart warming to see such young children donate their precious Easter eggs towards a good cause!! We remain touched and humbled by this gesture.

Another group of children who have formed a club called “The Water boys”, also donated a signed T’ Shirt to ThembaCare and raised about R120 for our hospice. It really brings us much joy to see that young children are being taught by the adults in their lives about the importance & relevance of Hospice in their community.

Elgin Free Range Chickens has really emerged as one of our fervent supporters amongst the businesses in Grabouw and their blessing to us of hot cross buns for our patients & staff, is truly appreciated.

March was also TB month on the Annual Department of Health’s Health Calendar and our Home Based Care (HBC) ladies partnered with the Grabouw Day Hospital to carry out a door to door TB Screening Campaign in the community. The TB Room at the Grabouw Day Hospital also informed us and thanked our HBC ladies for the 95% TB cure rate for the year 2012!! This major achievement might not have happened without the unceasing hard work of our team of HBC ladies offering HIV & TB adherence care & support daily, to our patients in the community.

Good News! The Department of Health has approved continued funding for 4 of our In Patient Unit beds. We are grateful for this funding support that helps our IPU staff continue providing quality Palliative care to our patients. This month was a particularly difficult month for the IPU as we lost 2 patients within one week to their fight against Cancer. We pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to comfort the bereaved families and also strengthen the IPU staff so they can continue caring for our patients.

March News

This month we’ve had the pleasure of hosting three students who’ve decided to do the practical training for their Home-based Care qualification with us. They chose us, not only because of the work we are doing for the community but also because the sister of one of the students was a patient of ours. The student saw how much we helped her sister and was inspired to train so that she could help others in a similar situation. Her sister is now living a healthy life, despite being HIV positive, and has managed to give birth to a child who is negative. This is great news!

Our best wishes go out to Portia, our nursing sister in charge of the Home-based Care team, she has been admitted to hospital and therefore been off work this past week. We wish her a speedy recovery.

February News

About a year ago a scrawny little dog came walking through the gates at  ThembaCare Grabouw. He spent the day with us and decided he loved it and never went home! We named him Wowow because most people that visited the unit and met him loved the story and said ..... you guessed it - Wow! He first arrived during renovations on the unit and the builder on site was so taken with this little dog that he decided to build Wowow a kennel.

From that day on Wowow became our mascot but what makes him so special is how he bonds with the patients by laying at their feet when they are out of their beds. He has also taken it upon himself to walk half way home with the staff every day, almost like a guardian. He simply shows his love via these simple gestures.

During the recent the riots in Grabouw our precious Wowow somehow got caught up in the mobs and was badly burned. His wounds were so severe that, as a result, he was admitted to intensive care. We were extremely worried. Thankfully he has recovered well and is back with us because of the support from
Joanna Brederode, who paid the vet bill! Joanna heard the story of Wowow and it melted her heart. It goes to show that one dog really can make a difference because the lives of the staff and patients at ThembaCare would certainly be a more grey without Wowow around.

January News

Protesters on the streets of Grabouw

As you may have already heard, we have had a rude awakening to 2013 here in Grabouw. Protests about Farmworkers’ pay have greatly affected our work. Due to the delicate situation, we had to send some inpatients back to their homes and we were unable to make any home visits to all our outpatients. This has made for a difficult situation because we have reports to do, patients to care for and less time to do it. Last week was particularly bad but now, although there are still localised problems, relative calm has been restored. We are praying that this is the end of the protesting for now because our patients have suffered as a result and have been able to re-open now so are just trying to catch up on all our home visits and reports.