Introduction and background to the organisation
St. Joseph's Care and Support Trust at Sizanani Village is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation based in the Kungwini Local Municipality of Bronkhorstspruit, operating in the Metsweding District, east of Pretoria. The Kungwini Local Municipality is a cross border municipality involving the Gauteng and Mpumalanga Provinces, and our organisation therefore renders services in both provinces.
St. Joseph's Care and Centre, a fully-fledged hospice, was founded in October 1999 by Elisabeth Schilling.
Among other, the Centre renders essential services to patients, of whom approximately 91% have Aids, in the final stage of life in order to assist them to die with dignity and in a caring, compassionate environment.
Until June 2003 St. Joseph's Care Centre operated under the auspices of Sizanani Village Trust. As a result of a strategic decision taken by the Board of Trustees the various programmes were unbundled and restructured as independent legal and operational entities in order to enhance management and service delivery. Subsequently St. Joseph's Care and Support Trust at Sizanani Village was registered as an independent trust in June 2003.
St. Joseph's Unique Features and Special Accomplishments
St. Joseph's Care and Support Trust is the only organisation offering a comprehensive and holistic HIV/Aids programmes in the Metsweding District. Services are rendered by a team of highly committed, fully trained and experienced caregivers, all of whom have successfully completed an intensive home-based care training programme which meets the specifications of the Gauteng Department of Health curriculum. They have also all received training in counselling and are qualified lay counsellors.
In February 2004 St. Joseph's Care Centre was chosen as one of only five antiretroviral rollout pilot sites in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) by the Southern African Catholics Bishop's Conference and by March 2004, 87 patients were on this treatment programme.
In November 2003 the Gauteng Department of Health approved St. Joseph's as a Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) Centre, and services commenced in February 2004 when the Department made available the testing kits.
We are especially proud of the fact that St. Joseph's Care Centre has been recognised and commended by the Department of Health as one of the four best home-based care programmes in the Gauteng Province, following an independent assessment that was conducted by the Institute for Community Development and Management.
St. Joseph's Care and Support Trust recognises the crucial role that Community-Based Organisations play in serving poor, vulnerable and marginalised communities. These organisations are most frequently formed as part of a community response to real developmental challenges, more especially in the HIV/Aids arena.
We are therefore committed to training and supporting Community-Based Organisations to become independent and more effective within local communities.
Historical perspective of the HIV / AIDS programme
St Joseph's Care Centre (hospice) was established in October 1999 after being approached by community leaders, social workers, nurses and persons affected by HIV / AIDS for help in dealing with the pandemic. In the beginning it focused on Palliative Care (PC) at the hospice. People who were rejected by their families or without family, as well as orphans, approached us for refuge. We soon realised the palliative care service would need to be supplemented by a Home Based Care (HBC ) and Community Based Care (CBC) programmes, if we were going to be of any real assistance to the community. |
|
|
|
