Respite Care is an extension to our home-based care (HBC) service. As the HIV/AIDS pandemic progressed in our province, despite a comprehensive HBC project being in operation, we still found many patients were dying alone in dreadful conditions.
HBC is definitely the answer to large scale HIV/AIDS care . However, HBC relies on our trained caregivers and nurses to give backup and support to the primary caregiver in each home. In many households, there are no longer caregivers at home because so many adults have died. Subsequently, patients are either left on their own all day or a child is taken out of school by the family to become the caregiver. The youngest caregiver we met was a 5 year old girl who was endeavouring to look after her desperately ill mother. To combat this, a respite unit was opened in February 2006 in a ward rented from Hillcrest Provincial Hospital.
The hospital subsequently reclaimed the ward, which forced us to look at alternate accommodation for our patients. Thanks to the generosity of funders who shared the vision of HBC within a controlled environment, we were able to build a 24-bed Respite Unit on our current premises and on Tuesday 21 October 2008 we moved the first patients into our Respite Unit - Othandweni "a place of hope".
Othandweni is a home from home run by a dedicated team of caregivers with registered nurse backup. Patients are holistically cared for in a loving environment. Patients receive a bed, food and whatever medicines they have been prescribed and either recover from acute illness or die with dignity and in peace.
An unexpected outcome of the respite unit is the number of patients that have been admitted to die but with care and support have recovered enough to be enlisted onto an antiretroviral program and are now living fulfilled lives within the community.
We desperately need support to keep the Othandweni Respite Unit going. We have a long waiting list and sadly many patients die before we are able to accommodate them.
We have two wonderful initiatives to help finance the Respite Unit's operational cost to its full 24 beds capacity.
- Othandweni Friends for Dinner
- Adopt-a-bedprogramme, a fixed financial commitment for a period of time to take care of the funding of a bed in our Respite Unit
To clarify the financial situation we have broken down the costs of keeping a patient in the unit per bed. This cost covers all the expenses accumulated during the patients stay in our unit.
| Cost per bed | Per day | Per week | Per month | Per year |
| In Rand | 150 | 1050 | 4500 | 54 000 |
| In Euro* | 15 | 105 | 450 | 5 400 |
From previous years experience we are able to estimate the occupation rate of 15-16 patients per bed/ per annum. We are calculating for a budget that allows us to accommodate those needs.
Simply put, if 720 generous people pledged R150 per month we would secure the funding for all so desperately needed 24 beds. If you would like to commit to the Adopt-a-bed programme please email info@hillaids.org.za or phone our offices on 031 765 5866.
Thank you to all our sponsors and donors who helped build the Othandweni "A Place of Love" Respite Unit and the Victor Daitz Positive Health Centre.
Thank You
Click here for a list of Donors for the Respite Unit
