Providing palliative care for patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness calls for special levels of devotion and compassion — qualities offered by Ladybrand Hospice in the Free State.
The hospice provides relief from suffering and distress when illness has reached the stage where continued medical treatment can no longer provide a cure. Patients are assigned a home-based carer. Ladybrand Hospice has 25 staff members — including home-based carers — and currently looks after 110 patients a month.
Ladybrand Hospice is a finalist in the Non-Governmental Organisation/Non-Profit Organisation category of this year’s Absa Healthcare Initiative awards.
Says the hospice’s general manager, Jenny Ferreira: ‘We have a great deal of passion for the work we do and for the people we serve. For us as an organisation, it is wonderful to be involved in something like the Absa Healthcare Initiative awards, because it gives the people who work for us a sense of fulfilling our mission and vision. It is also about giving something back to our staff members, for whom this work is very much a labour of love.”
Ferreira believes that institutions such as the Ladybrand Hospice are set to play an even greater role in healthcare in future years.
Founded in 2001, Ladybrand Hospice is a member of the Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa, tax exempt and a registered non-profit organisation. Ladybrand Hospice strives to provide:
– A caring, efficient organisation in keeping with the standards of the Hospice Palliative Care Association;
– A sustainable, well-managed and accountable organisation;
– The highest level of supervised home-based care for patients;
– Holistic care, support and counselling for patients and their families, orphans and foster parents;
– Day care centre facilities for pre-school orphans affected by incurable diseases;
– Ongoing training for all staff and volunteers, in order to develop skills and build capacity; and
– Encouragement, cooperation and networking with all service providers within the local community.
Ladybrand Hospice has a fundraising strategy in place to ensure the sustainability of the organisation. ‘By providing a high-quality service, we make sure that we offer ‘value for money’ to funders,” says Els.
The hospice provides opportunities to those affected and infected by life-threatening diseases and to orphans through job-creation and empowerment projects such as Beads of Hope, Threads of Hope and a food garden project.