From our President....
Dear fellow Rotarians and friends,
Christmas decorations in the shops always make me panic – how does it happen that the year end rush is almost here already?
WH Davies wrote “What is life if, full of care, we have no
time to stand and stare”. I learnt that poem at school, it is called LEISURE. I
would have bet that it was written by Walter de la Mere – lucky it was not a
quiz question!! Seriously though – do we take time off to smell the roses? To
enjoy the small things? It is becoming an important part of corporate life to
make sure employees have a “work life balance”.
It is so easy during this period of unusual “new normal”
work hours to work harder and longer than before and not be as productive. Try
to run your day - either you run the day, or the day runs you.
Take some time to enjoy the many shades of green after the
beautiful rains, smell the roses, and watch for the Jacarandas which will be
starting to bloom this month. When I was at university they said that if the
Jacarandas were in bloom you should be studying, if the flowers were falling
then it was too late to start!! I may have misjudged my timing a bit way back
then and spent a lot of time smelling roses!
Last week....
- We do things differently
- We look different
- We are not the average Dick and Jane in the room
- And yet we do not celebrate these differences.
- To lead by example
- Our stories have the power to inspire action from others
- The intention in story telling is not for personal gain.
- It is how you tell your story that matters
- With passion and purpose, abandoning the clinical and professional tone
- We no longer talk at our audience, we engage and connect with them on an emotional level.
Rotarians, People of Action.....
DAY CENTRE AND TRAINING FACILITY
FOR PALLIATIVE CAREGIVERS
AT CHRIS HANI BARAGWANATH
ACADEMIC HOSPITAL
Rosebank
Rotary Club implemented a health service project with an environmentally
friendly, recycled solution.
Rosebank
Rotary Club, D9400 and D1260 (UK) clubs, together with Palliative Care leaders
at CHBAH Hospital in Soweto ( 3rd largest hospital
globally) gave support to the decisions of the 67th World Health
Assembly for member Governments and countries to create a health policy to
integrate Palliative Care, as part of the continuum of care.
This
became the GG1531461 Palliative Care Project named “Bophelo” (Sesotho for “Here
is Life”). A holistic, interdisciplinary, patient-centric model of care was
established together with spiritual care
training. The provision of spiritual, but non-religion-specific, support
to terminally ill patients and their families was an important component of
the project. The positive results enabled the Centre of Excellence for
Palliative Care to advocate for spiritual care inclusion in South Africa’s
National Palliative Care Policy.
Spiritual
care is now officially part of providing health care interventions in South
Africa. Also the very effective model of care, developed in the program, was
included in the National Policy as a public sector provision of palliative care.
Yet
another important component of the project was to reduce the need for
hospitalization by giving comfort and quality
end-of-life experience to terminally ill patients in their homes.
It was established that
using available community care volunteers is a cost-effective way of
introducing and expanding palliative care to the huge community of Soweto with
some 1.25 million inhabitants.
Volunteer Caregivers, called “Grannies”, continue
to play a major role in supporting the provision of informal home care visits.
They are an important source of support for the terminally ill and their
grieving families. As the meeting room, used by the Care Givers was no
longer available, they appealed to Rosebank Rotary Club to assist in
providing a prefabricated
building in the grounds of the hospital, to enable
Caregivers to facilitate bereavement and family group meetings to give ongoing
compassion, hope, comfort and social care to patients and the families of
critically ill family members.
Given the capacity problems in the public health care
system, the Club realized the Palliative Care Dept is likely to continue to
rely on end of life care volunteers working in the community for a long time to come.
A decision was made to apply for a District Grant to recycle a sea container obtained from the Bedfordview Rotary Club, who run the Humanitarian Resource Centre.
There was a definite environmental benefit of
repurposing and relocating a redundant 12 m steel sea container, whose original
purpose was to ship thousands of library and school books, donated by USA
Rotary Clubs, as resources for educational and literacy service projects.
For Rotarians concerned with shrinking their carbon footprint, a steel container conversion is a perfect Environmental Project, but the Club soon found themselves confronted by major challenges.
Rotarian Sonja Hood’s spouse Steven Hood, became involved making the project a possibility by contributing to the conversion and transportation of the 3 ton 12m long sea container. The Club is extremely grateful for this intervention.
Once the sanding, painting and fitting of the windows and doors had been completed by a commercial organization the container was moved to PP Kevin Wolhuter’s Kyalami Estate.
Here Rotarian Jerry Bernardo and John Hope-Baillie worked tirelessly refurbishing the interior. Jerry installed and painted the partitioning while John installed the numerous electrical fittings.
The
collection of the container from Kevin’s home created great excitement, apart
from the scurry of distraught rabbit families who had made their burrows under
the container.
It was a major battle to maneuver the crane
truck and trailer in and out of Kevin’s driveway.
Ann Pademore arranged the transport for the
delivery to the Palliative Care Centre. But steam lines and electric cables
traversing the Baragwanath campus created major restrictions. After several
inspections it was decided to lift the container up and over the surrounding
buildings.
The robust truck fitted with a telescopic
crane, with a reach of 29m, was able to hoist the container skywards, swinging
it over hospital buildings, whilst maneuvering overhead electric cables.
The precarious container was cautiously and accurately lower onto the plinth platforms built by Jerry.
There was a HUGE sigh of relief, followed by an
excited inspection by Dr Mpho Ratshikana-Moloto, Director of Centre of
Excellence for Palliative Care, who expressed her sincere gratitude.
More
fittings and furniture will be supplied by PP Jean Bernardo and Rotarian Sonja
Hood. PP John Symons has donated a kitchen and Rotarian James Croswell will assemble
and fit desks. Jerry Bernardo will handle plumbing connections for the water
and electricity.
The
Training and Care Day Centre will be completed shortly when the Club will
present a Rotary signboard to the Centre. Covid-19 created delays to the hand
over date of 10th October to celebrate World Hospice
and Palliative Care Day.
Dr
Mpho’s research paper based on the benefits of Spiritual Care was published January 31, 2020 by American Academy of Hospice and Palliative
Medicine. She acknowledged Rotary Club Rosebank and Rotary Club Hatfield
in United Kingdom. Spiritual care provision given to
2,557 palliative care patients indicated the importance of the spiritual
dimension in the palliative care of patients regardless of culture, religious
tradition or spiritual belief.
This has been an action-orientated service project that has engaged fully with the community, meeting their needs. Its success is thanks to many working together contributing their own special expertise. Rotary opens opportunities for members to implement sustainable service projects to improve the lives of people in a community. The Care Givers can continue to expand and create more opportunities to foster a culture of peace and compassion within the families and homes they visit.
Rotary work IS about positive peace,
goodwill and understanding.
James
Croswell,
Chair International Service.
Rotary
Club or Rosebank, Johannesburg, District 9400, South Africa