VEREENIGING. – Established in 1985 to care for patients suffering from a life limiting illness the centre was recently revamped and modernised in 2020 with the help of funding from the National Lotteries Commission but has been struggling ever since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The centre has been providing palliative care and assistance to patients with terminal illnesses for the last 35 years.

That changed last week when the centre was forced to finally closed their doors.

According to Gail Heasley, former CEO and manager of the Wide Horizon Hospice, care used to be free of charge because the organisation was able to raise the funds and cover the costs of beds in the unit, but unfortunately the Covid-19 pandemic left many people without work and caused many companies to close, in turn shrinking the support base.

“The funds that were in our savings account was utilised to keep the unit operational, but unfortunately that money has now run out.

“The department of health do subsidise and has over the years subsidised some beds in the unit, but obviously it doesn’t cover the full costs.

“Last year unfortunately those funds were not realised and because of that it put us in a bit of pickle because we couldn’t take patients who were unable to pay for their care,” says Heasley.

“We cannot charge patients for what it (their care) actually costs but through fundraising were able to subsidise their care.”

“With shrinking donations coming in and not much fundraising going on, unfortunately it has come to a stage now where we’ve basically run out of money for the unit and are in a position where we can no longer to continue with it because of the cost of the staff, even though they don’t earn market related salaries.”

Unfortunately, the families of two patients who were left in the unit – one of them a 92-year-old-woman – are now struggling to find a new home for her.
Heasley says this is a tragedy.

Heasley says Wide Horizon Hospice will be able to keep their outreach programmes going for a while (with limited staff available) but says the organisation needs funding.

“We would like to turn the situation around so that we are able to provide frail care to bedbound patients with limited mobility.”

According to Heasley keeping the unit open would require at least R1 million of funding per year.

“We need to raise at least a R1 million a year, because that is what it cost us to provide care, accommodation, food, laundry and buy medication and PPE to run the facility.

“There are a lot of expenses when dealing with terminally ill people,” says Heasley.

“We are the only accredited palliative care hospice in the Vaal Triangle and because of that we have a certain ethical duty.

“We must obey certain guidelines and a certain way of practicing.

“This tragedy is exponential because it causes terrible trauma for the families of the patients that remain, but without funding and without money we cannot expect people to work for nothing.

“They must receive some kind of reward for the number of hours and work that they do, as anyone with a job.”

How can you help the Wide Horizon Hospice?

Healsey says be people can help by donating funds.

“Even if it is just R20 or R30 or R50, every little bit helps. For us to remain operational we would require at least R50 000,” says Heasley.

Members of the public who can assist can pay money directly into the Wide Horizon Hospice’s account.

The Wide Horizon Hospice is registered as a Public Benefit Organisation in accordance with Section 18A of the Income Tax Act, which means that all donations made out to the organisation is fully deductible through your annual income tax

Banking details:
First National Bank
Three Rivers Branch (Branch Code: 251 337)
Account number: 5130 5869 261

About the Wide Horizon Hospice:

According Heasley, who joined the organisation in 2000 as a fundraiser, the Wide Horizon Hospice was originally started in 1985 by Edna Davis who was doing homebased care from the boot of her car.

A building was later donated where she started taking in terminally ill patients who could no longer cope on their own.

The unit, which was essentially an old house transformed into a palliative care unit, was designed to take only a few patients, but grew over the years.

According to Heasley the focus in the earlier years was on cancer patients and people with life limiting illnesses.

“At one stage we saw the influence of HIV in the community and opened a clinic that helped with those clients. The focus started to shift.

“The facility assisted patients to go for testing and then looked after those patients in the unit when they developed Aids and became too frail to work.

After ARV’s became widely available on the market there was an improvement in the lives of those suffering from HIV.

The Wide Horizon Hospice Outreach in later years turned their attention to mines where they would do outreaches.

The Wide Horizon Hospice still visits the Seriti Mine (New Vaal Colliery) regularly to do health screenings.

More than 14 years ago the Granny Program was born.

“Many of the patients who we cared for died and left their children behind. The children became reliant on their grandmothers, placing an additional burden on these elderly women who in most cases didn’t earn much and were reliant on a very small pension.”

“We managed to secure funding from Canada and were able to support 16 of our our grandmothers and about 20 children.

“Through the funding we were able to get brand new school uniforms for the children so that when, they went to school, they looked lovely and had all new clothes.

“This program is still operational, and we are very proud of that,” says Heasley.”