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.

December News

We had a blessed this year from volunteers visiting to our sponsors making sure that ThembaCare name is mentioned out in the community. We need to say a big thank you to Two-a-Day for the donations we received from their staff for World AIDS Day day as well as the beautiful flowers and also to Pineview Primary for the much needed soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes. They might seem like boring basics but these kind of donations are practical and very welcome!

Last, but not least, to our loyal staff: THANK YOU for every minute you put in to making ThembaCare a success, for your dedication towards our clients and their families. May this festive season be blessed!

October News

This month the workers in parliament dipped into their own pocket and bought ThembaCare Grabouw a much-needed hoist to assist us with lifting patients in and out of bed. This should certainly prevent us getting any back injuries and make it much safer for the patients too! We are very grateful for their generosity.

We still care for 418 clients in and around Grabouw and we have had six patients in the inpatient unit this month.

September News

One of our carers checking a patient's medication

Can you believe it’s just three months until it’s 2013? At this time of year we begin to ask ourselves whether we are on target for all the things we want to accomplish this year. This is how things look so far: Our IPU have had 59 patients this year of which only 13 have died. For us this is an accomplishment and our 16 ladies in the Out Patient Unit are still looking after over 400 patients in the community. We are also very happy to have a smartly painted and improved building to work in.  On top of that some of our staff have been blessed with new children themselves:  Anna, Thandeka, and Jo-Anne have all had daughters and we wish them well with their new additions. So far, so good!

With a short holiday coming up at the end of this week we also just want to say a big thank you to our trusty locum staff. It means a lot to have a well deserved break and to know that the good work will continue while some of us are away on holiday.

August News

August was our coldest month here in Grabouw, with lots and lots of rain and snow capping the surrounding mountains. Despite the hostile weather our home-based care ladies still continue to be true to their calling and are making daily visits to our patients on foot. We have also managed to continue with a lot of refurbishments and this month, thanks again to the Gerald Wright Trust, the whole of the outside of our building now has a fresh coat of paint. It looks very smart!

The inpatient unit has had a mixed month. We sadly lost a patient who gave up the battle with HIV but also happily we were able to send home another patient who had arrived less than a month ago with a very low CD4 of 8. She looks happy and healthy and to see the thanks in her little daughter and mother’s eyes makes our jobs all the more worthwhile. CD4 is a way of measuring the amount of white blood cells your body has for fighting an infection. A person with a normal CD4 is around 1500 to 2000 so you can imagine, when this lady arrived with a CD4 of only 8 we didn’t not know whether she would survive!

One of our male out patients who had been living for years with a tumour on the whole of his back is doing very well after it was surgically removed. His self esteem has grown hugely now he doesn’t have the burden of the tumour. He is now doing so well that he has been able to fly home to Nigeria and join his wife and kids. He was always very involved in our life at ThembaCare and would often be part of our weekly church service. We will miss him greatly but are so happy he is doing so well.

July News

Can you believe there is only six months left of this year?

This month we have been very busy. On Mandela Day we received a visit from members of parliament who provided us with fresh new bed linen. Also, our building as become a bit of a building site – but in a good way! We have been having work done to make our space compliant with fire regulations and the HPCA and to improve the quality of the service we offer. The works have involved making doorways and corridors wider, adding ramps for wheelchair users and extra doors. All this was made possible by the generous people of the Gerald Wright Trust. We have also added awnings to the front and the side of the building to allow patients shelter from the rain and sun. This was funded by Appeltiser and Elgin Freerange Chickens provided some cosy new pyjamas for all of our inpatients. Thanks guys!

However, there is one specific donor who deserves an extra special mention: Uncle Sammy! Uncle Sammy and his wife are both pensioners but have been loyal supporters of us since we opened in 2006. Every month they bless us with tea, coffee and sugar – the drinks that fuel our staff and patients here at ThembaCare. Although this offering may seem very meager to many people it is actually a huge gift to us. It means the world to us to have people who support us consistently with the skills and means they have available and we would certainly be a lot more grumpy in the mornings without our caffeine!

June News

Winter in Grabouw is finally here and with it the freezing cold mornings, evenings and rain. June for ThembaCare Grabouw has been a busy month with a visiting volunteer team from the US going out into the community with our ‘Palliative Care Angels’, in order to experience firsthand the amazing work that the ladies do. This is usually arranged by Village of Hope for the volunteers so that they can have a bigger perspective of the work that is offered to our patients in the community of Grabouw.

We need to update our building to comply with fire and safety recommendations. Corridors need widening, doors need moving, ramps need building. There is a lot to do! Work has started in full vigour, with our area director, Tim Walker, overseeing it all. There has been a lot of traffic in and out of the facility as a result. Many thanks to Tim and the Gerald Wright Trust for making this possible!!

Work also started this month on our long awaited multishade for the ThembaCare stoop and front entrance. This is for the benefit of our In Patients. Many thanks go to Appletiser and our funding manager, Amanda, for eventually making this happen for us. Hopefully, by next month we should have pictures of what the completed work looks like.

Our prayers still this month go out to one of our In Patients who has been very ill. She managed to give us a smile this month and that just gave all of us who care for her some glimmer of hope!!

We would also like to request prayer for one of our teenage patients in community. The young girl who lives with her Aunt left Grabouw abruptly without any referral for continuing the young teenager’s HIV treatment. Our prayer is that all the hard work that our ladies have invested in this young girl will not be lost and that her Aunt will find a way of ensuring that she remains on her much needed life saving treatment.