Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
A helping hand for hospices
Mail & Guardian Online - October 25, 2007
Lynley Donnelly
Merit Award -- Investing in the Future Corporate Award: First National Bank Fund and the Hospice and Palliative Care Association (HPCA) HIV/Aids has forced all sectors of society to respond to the ravages of the epidemic -- from businesses and health insurers to educational institutions. It has forced those who care for the terminally ill, our caregivers and health workers, to re-invent how they treat those living with the virus. Hospices are seeing a change in patient profiles. They are no longer serving patients over 60. Because of HIV/Aids, patients are increasingly under the age of 45. The First National Bank Fund and the Hospice and Palliative Care Association have won a merit award for their joint work in improving the care of terminally ill patients living in hospices across the country. The investing judges described the project as an excellent partnership between a major financial institution and a NGO. "Hospices are not a place where people go to die anymore," says Rachel Dlamini, programme coordinator for the FNB Fund's hospice initiative. With access to antiretrovirals, patients are admitted and then discharged, she says. The nature of hospices' work is now more widespread than just supporting the terminally ill and their families. They have had to diversify their operations, reaching out to communities that the public healthcare sector cannot serve. Hospices are involved increasingly in helping those "infected, as well as affected", by HIV/Aids, says Dlamini. This includes home-based care programmes to enable patients to remain in familiar surroundings while they are ill. Hospices are involved increasingly in social services, such ARV treatment provision, as well as educating communities and providing psycho-social support for families affected by HIV/Aids. The FNB Fund has supported hospices since its inception in 1998. While funding was on an ad hoc basis initially, it decided that a more stable approach was required. At the start of 2006 the hospice programme was identified as a flagship project in FNB's new funding drive. Last year, after initiating the hospice programme, more than R4-million was spent on hospices, seeing to the care of more than 16 000 patients. Collaborating with the Hospice and Palliative Care Association, the coordinating body of 100 hospices, meant the fund gained a greater understanding of what individual institutions needed and how best to assist them. Overall feedback showed the degree to which funding is inconsistent. For hospices to run efficiently, secure, long-term donations were required. The FNB Fund now makes three-year grant commitments to hospices to ensure effective planning for the future. The partnership also ensures that finances supplied by the FNB Fund are channelled through a body mandated to ensure quality care of patients and support for families, as well as support for the hospices themselves, offering mentorship and guidance as they care for the ill. Dlamini points out that it is not just the help to patients that is commendable. Support is offered to care-givers, with funding for information-sharing, networking and sector wide cooperation. "Peer learning and networking are activities with intangible pay-offs in terms of sharing best practice, increasing motivation and support, 'raising the game' of the whole sector," says FNB. "In an area where there is such a great need to innovate and respond effectively to increasing numbers of people requiring care, support to information-sharing and workshop activities contributes to the ability of individuals and organisations ... to respond dynamically to the challenges they face." Dr Liz Gwyther, chief executive of the Hospice and Palliative Care Association, says FNB understands the importance of funding directed towards personnel costs, which ensures good quality palliative and end-of-life care. "Growing numbers of patients need care and good quality care with service support," says Gwyther. "And a hospice's biggest cost is personnel."
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