The Family Worship Centre (FWC) Corner and Harmony Street Hursthill talks about their Hospice program that they have been running for the past eight years.
“We see life as very precious, we believe that you don’t have to die alone, you don’t have to die in pain. You must have been to a hospital, there comes a stage when doctors say that there’s nothing they can do for you, that’s when hospice comes in,” said Abie Masiela, the nurse manager at the facility.
The intuition is very specific to the patient that they take in, they only admit adults with life-limiting illnesses including those suffering from cancer, patients suffering from HIV/Aids stage 4, strokes, and dementia.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life for patients and their families facing problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering”.
“They helped me a lot, I use to have a sore where your hand can go through, right by the bum, now the sore has disappeared, only a small thing.
“I use to struggle at home, my wife was working, there was no one to look after me, the sore was boiling and then the prostate, I took it out.
“I’m healing now it’s only the leg when the prostate hit me, I fell, it locks everything but now I’m going to physio, soon I’ll be going back home,” said Samuel Letuku, a 66-year-old patient that is fighting prostate cancer.
The facility holds 50 beds with their major focus on palliative and frail care, referrals to other agencies and professionals, speech and physical rehabilitation services, social program for families and patients, volunteer companionship, transportation, respite care, arts and crafts activities, symptoms and pain management, group therapy, grief and spiritual counselling.
Girley Baloyi, a caregiver explains her duties: “the first thing when we come here in the morning we go room to room to do handovers with the other nurses, they tell us what happen during the night and then they hand over to us, we then take the patients to the TV room after that at 8 am we give them porridge and their tablets, after that we make up their beds, clean up the rooms and pack their wardrobes. After lunch, we take them again to bed to sleep, when the families come we take them to the patient.”
The primary purpose is to provide an alternative to hospital and home-based care for the terminally ill.
FWC Hospice health care professionals offer a 24-hour specialized knowledge and support at the end of life care.
The institution is said to be a home away from home where sick people come to be taken care of.
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