Hospice palliative care is a type of medical care that focuses on the provision of holistic, inter-disciplinary treatment, including comfort and support to individuals who have been diagnosed with a life limiting illness. Hospice palliative care can be provided in a variety of settings, including hospice in-patient support centres, nursing homes, frail care centres and in patients’ own homes.
Men’s Health Awareness Month in November is an annual observance aimed at raising awareness of preventable health problems and encouraging early detection and treatment of disease among men. The advocacy campaign gives health care providers the opportunity to partner with companies and individuals to encourage men to seek regular medical advice and early treatment for…
Helderberg Hospice are Palliative Care Specialists (Palliative Care is a holistic method of improving the quality of life of a patient, and their loved ones, who are directly affected by a life-threatening illness.) Our services are available to patients at home as well as through a specialised, short-term admission 24-Hour Support Centre. The unit offers…
Cancer patients are heroes – those who battle with this disease every day, those whose families walk with them, support them, dreading every new test and celebrating every small victory with them. Each one, patient and loved ones alike, are heroes in our eyes – dragon-slayers all! Some of our heroes who have wielded the…
October reminds us always of breast cancer awareness month, with 1 in 27 South African women likely to be diagnosed with the disease at some time in their lives. Our minds have been on all things pink and floral, and our team has been busy with back-to-back community outreach events and fundraisers. AGM August was…
Written by: Fiona Nell One is somehow always aware of there being a hospice nearby. Whether the full extent of their services becomes known, is I suppose, is dependent on the relationship entered into between hospice and the ‘patient’ & their family members. Towards the end of 2019 my mother-in-law Lorna started losing weight at…
Thandi, as we will call her, was in her early 20’s and recently had undergone an amputation at the knee as a result of osteosarcoma. She was admitted to us from Tygerberg Hospital, one of the large State hospitals in Cape Town, so that she could recuperate from the operation. Unlike the other patients who…
Written by: Dianne Waddington, Head of Social Work Many of us were taught that grief follows a stage-like progression, and once we have completed a stage, we will move on to the next with the last stage being acceptance. And with acceptance, no more of the chaos of grief. Unfortunately, grief is not an orderly…
It’s a deadly combination: South Africa’s scourge – TB – and the pandemic HIV/Aids. Where there is one, there is frequently the other; both interlinked in a complex dance of disease and deprivation. Like lethal shadows, the one stalks the other, masking symptoms, complicating treatment, spiraling the mortality statistics ever upwards. Jack was destined to…
Written by Liz Flack, Volunteer Looking back over 38 years since Helderberg Hospice started it is astonishing how it has grown and become such an important part of the Helderberg Community. In 1978 Cicely Saunders, the founder of St Christopher Hospice in UK came to Cape Town to introduce the concept of Palliative Care, pain…
Written by K-Lee Jubber, Reception Volunteer In 2018 my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the thought of losing her when she had so much life left to live was heartbreaking. At the time I had never heard of hospice and the idea of sending my mom to spend her last few days away…
The 2022 World Hospice Palliative Care Day takes place on 08 October 2022 – Wear a ribbon to show your solidarity with those who are grieving. Helderberg Hospice is calling on our community to wear a wrist ribbon on their right wrist on Saturday 8 October to indicate that they are experiencing grief, whether personally…
