Vryheid Hospice forced to retrench staff due to financial crisis

VRYHEID Hospice is at risk of closing its doors after three decades of compassionately caring for the terminally ill through life’s worst trials and tribulations. Financial strain and dwindling resources have led the committee to make tough decisions to try and stay afloat, including selling a car and retrenching all of the permanent staff aside from one nurse.

“When Hospice started out in Vryheid, originally there was just a qualified nurse assisting the terminally ill, administering meds and pain relief. Thirty years later, that’s where we are again,” said Hospice committee chairperson, Harry Heyns.

With the generosity of an American funder, Vryheid Hospice was able to expand its operations over the years to include the daily treatment and counseling of HIV and Aids patients, and even establish a program to treat TB patients.

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Eighteen months ago, the organisation was able to attend to more than a hundred patients, who came to depend of the kind professionalism of the trained nurses who ensured that they were still able to maintain some quality of life
through life’s worst inevitabilities.

Today, the HIV and Aids programand the TB program have had to be discontinued and the numberof terminally ill patients attended to, has been reduced to what ishumanly possible for just one nurse to accomplish.

“We have expenses like any organisation. While we were getting funding from America we managed to stay afloat. However, when the new president came into office, the funding was discontinued. At the time, we had a healthy reserve that had been generated from bequests, but we have had to tap into that reserve and had hoped that we could secure funding from another source,” said Mr Heyns.

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“We were unsuccessful with Lotto. While we do have individual and business sponsors in Vryheid, and we are able to generate some income from the Book Shop, the Charity Shop and a flat that we rent out, we are still experiencing a shortfall of R3000 to R4000 every month. Mid-2018, we called our staff together and told them what our situation was. In November we had to retrench five nurses, and if we are unable to raise the funds, it is only a matter of time before we have to shut down altogether.”

To assist Hospice contact Cecelia van Wyk on 072 726 7133 or Harry Heyns on 082 800 3030.