This programme was initiated in January 2013 for children requiring ongoing treatment upon discharge from a specialised hospital, such as the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.
An event at Sarah Fox on Wednesday, 12 June was hosted to celebrate the successful establishment of this palliative care programme. At the start of 2013, the unit was renovated and equipped, and staff were recruited and trained in preparation to admit the first patients. The Children’s Hospital Trust commenced fundraising for this R2.8-million two-year programme in January 2013 and is presently still in need of the final 20%, an estimated R600 000.

What is palliative care?

Unlike hospice care with its focus on end-of-life care, palliative medicine and care covers the full journey of a child with a life-limiting or life-threatening illness because it offers treatment and care as patients progress from diagnosis, to disease progression and finally to end-of-life and the family’s bereavement.

Being able to care for children with palliative care needs is emotionally taxing and requires specially trained staff who are sensitive to their unique needs. Palliative care training was conducted for all the Sarah Fox caregivers, nurses and allied health practitioners, as well as professionals from other institutions, totalling 57 people trained to date.

“The Children’s Hospital Trust’s funding of this 10-bed inpatient palliative care unit for children is part of the Trust’s outreach strategy to effect improvement at childcare facilities outside the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. In this way the Trust is impacting at an intermediate level of the healthcare system by creating a service that alleviates a very traumatic time for patients and their families,” says Louise Driver, CEO of the Children’s Hospital Trust.

The services of this unit will improve palliative care for children at an intermediate level of the public healthcare service in the Cape Metro and the core multidisciplinary team includes a palliative care consultant, a medical officer, nursing staff, a social worker and an occupational therapist, complemented by volunteer aroma and music therapists.

Dr Michelle Meiring, the paediatric palliative care consultant who has been instrumental in the development of this unit, has many stories to share of lives impacted by this service since establishment. Dr Meiring shares her experience: “The family of a previously healthy child who sustained irreversible brain injury expressed their gratitude for the opportunity that Sarah Fox provided them to adjust to their child’s increased care needs. The newly trained staff were able to support them emotionally as they came to terms with their new reality and also provided them with the necessary skills to enable them to care for their child at home.”