Hospice struggling for space

A hospice’s development plans are gathering dust as it fails to secure a long-term lease for new and spacious premises amenable to its kind of service delivery.

The Hospice and Rehabilitation Centre at the old Gordon Primary school on 2nd Avenue is the only one in Alex and attracts chronic and terminally-ill patients also from other provinces to its inadequate space and facilities.

Centre manager Grace Marutlulle said they moved to the premises four years ago from an old factory where the rent was hiked exorbitantly. The non-profit organisation’s budget was insufficient for the rent and to provide essential services to patients. The patients were brought by families stressed over caring for terminally-ill relatives, from depleted resources, lack of nursing skills and from frustration watching their relatives become progressively worse. Marutlulle said sometimes the patients were brought to evade stigma and shame spread in the neighbourhood about terminal illnesses which the public tends to associate with HIV or witchcraft.

Without an option, the hospice’s four-year stay has over run the 18-month lease they recieved from the Alexandra Renewal Project, now known as the Joburg Development Agency. “We maximise on the limited space by sharing the facilities. The toilets act as a laundry room, wards double as a linen and storage rooms, other storage rooms also store medical waste awaiting incineration and the board room also stores other donated items and materials.” She said they have pleaded with several high-profile persons in the city and provincial government for a longer-term lease, but received one for 10 years at Eastbank. This she said, is not attractive to donors wanting to sponsor a facility which will provide more humane and qualitative services in the long term for the ever-increasing number of patients suffering from strokes, cancer, HIV and other terminal illnesses. “Currently we can only cater for 30 persons in this crammed space.”

She added that the new place is still to be developed, but they pay R1 500 monthly rent just to retain the space with the hope of getting a long-term lease agreeable to donors.

Meanwhile she said, one donor gave them six phones for an income-generating initiative, but they can’t be brought in due to current space limitation. Marutlulle hopes for a change of mind by the authorities on the lease issue as more people are seeking a hospice whose services also complement government’s service delivery mandate.

Details: Hospice and Rehabilitation Centre; 011 443 3525.