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.
