Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital Occupational therapy patients cook with gadgets
Charlotte Maxeke Academic hospital's head of occupational therapy, Vida Yip Cateux began the Cooking with Gadgets programme to encourage and show patients that they were capable of being independent.
Occupational therapy patients at the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital battled it out in the department’s kitchen for the ‘Cooking with Gadgets’ competition.
Held on October 21, the occupational therapy head of the department Vida Yip Cateuax said the aim of Cooking with Gadgets was to encourage patients’ recovery process.
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“We started the Cooking with Gadgets programme in 2015. The need arose because patients would not continue with rehabilitation exercises learned at hospital, instead they forgot about the exercises at home.”
Yip Cateuax added that the occupational therapy department telling the patients about the cooking competition motivated them to do recovery exercises at home.
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Cooking with Gadgets contestant Elvis Tshabalala said he believed he had a good chance to win the competition.
“Cooking is my passion; I began cooking when I was seven years old and dream of owning a restaurant one day. I am quite confident about my cooking today; in the first two rounds I came first so I hope it’s the case with this one.”
Tshabalala noted that he joined the cooking programme this year and wouldn’t let the stroke he suffered in 2014 deter him from his cooking dreams.
The occupational therapy’s head of department explained that the cooking programme was important for the patient’s recovery progress.
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cook-off. Photo: Asanda Matlhare
“Since 2016 we extended the programme to include head, stroke and hand injury patients. To date we’ve helped 106 but we had to pause in the last two years but this is our sixth year running the programme.”
The winners of the cooking competition were: first place Elvis Tshabalala, second place Bilaal Hassim and third place Maruping Mamokere.
Arthritis Foundation SA Gauteng branch manager Brenda Spence said the foundation was glad to work with the hospital’s occupational therapy department.
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“We are here today to show our patients how to be able to use their hands with the gadgets. We find with the rheumatoid arthritis patients their hands and fingers are bent in and they need to know that they can still be independent at programmes such as Cooking with Gadgets and also be helpful at home and not feel like a burden.”
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