A model patient!

Last month, the hospitals dentist Etienne drove to Bulungula Preschool to do a presentation on Dental hygiene and to hand out free Aqua fresh toothbrushes to all the children! In return, NGO Bulungula Incubator kindly donated a truck-load of scientific models such as an eye, a tooth, skin and reproductive systems to Zithulele hospital! Some of the staff have already been having great fun taking them apart and they are going to come in very useful as visual aids for patients!

The Long RUN to Freedom!

A team of Zithulele residents gathered with staff from Madwaleni hospital on Saturday for The 'Madiba Mission', a 32km run starting in Qunu and following a route Nelson Mandela once walked as a child with his grandmother to collect medicine from a clinic. The day was a great success so well done to everyone who took part, especially Kate and JT who managed to run the full 32 km without breaking a sweat! Very impressive!

April 2010!

Last month 3000 toothbrushes were donated by Aquafresh to our dental department! So far 400 have been distributed to local schools, and the hospital is offering a free toothbrush when you get a clean and polish! They are disappearing quickly so its first come, first serve!



Finally, the Therapy department has its mobile clinic back! After 4 months without a vehicle, it is great to be able to start visiting the 6 clinics in the surrounding area and make home visits again!

Therapy has also bought 200 new crutches for patients, after 6 months of using home-made crutches out of bits and bobs around the hospital!

We are so happy to welcome our new pharmacist Bonga Memele from Kwazulu-natal. Since January, the Pharmacy has been an area of chaos without a pharmacist, and the staff have certainly had their work cut out! Although they have done an undeniably great job, it is a relief to have a permanent and qualified pharmacist to offer her skills to the hospital! :)

Big news in 2010!

It has been a shamefully long time since the blog has been updated, over a year infact! And alot has changed so as a welcome back, here are a few exciting things that have been going on in the hospital so far in 2010! Enjoy :)

An anonymous benefactor donated a computer and laser printer worth R9200 to the therapy department!

Last Month, one of our occupational therapists Lisa, drove 14 year old Aphiwe, a patient at Zithulele Hospital to enroll in a special school for disabled children in Mthatha.



The Foundation 'Reach for a Dream' donated a brand new TV with an aerial for a young man called Mikha who suffers from Neurofibromatosis.

Sadly, the therapy department has had to suspend its valuable outreach to the surrounding clinics due to lack of transport.

With the departure of Zithulele's pharmacist this January, Jabulani has taken over the role of handling the hospital's ARV down referral system, which so far has been very successful!



We would also like to congratulate Eybe and Alicia Meents on their marriage earlier this year!

Bigger and hopefully better!

Then...(2005)

...and now (2009).















We're into February, but we haven't yet introduced our brand new, bigger than ever team!

From 5 doctors (3 before the Gaunts arrived) and one radiographer back in 2005, we now have:

9 doctors

4 occupational therapists

3 physiotherapists

2 pharmacists

2 radiographers

1 dentist

1 dietician

A total of 22 clinical professionals!

So we're meeting more of the need than previously, though we know we will never actually meet the need!

It's a privilege to work with such a talented multi-disciplinary team and we hope our experience will inspire others...

Christmas day

Following the water shortage (see the previous post) came the FLOOD! Someone had left a tap on in our guest bathroom so when we got back from a Christmas Day swim, half our house was under water! Fortunately, many hands make light work and things were cleaned up in time for Christmas lunch for 24 people! Who said rural Christmases are small? We had to move the lounge furniture out onto the verandah to accommodate everyone!

There was one other piece of drama - a woman with placenta praevia (placenta over the opening of the uterus) and bleeding arrived just before lunch. We don't usually like taking placenta praevia to theatre here as things can go badly wrong, but we had little choice. Although the baby was stillborn, the mom did well, something we're really pleased about!

Submitted by Ben.

A new water perspective

These pictures are not posed! On the weekend before Christmas (already a distant memory) we experienced THE BIG DROUGHT. A power line fault had brought the pump at the dam to a halt and the water tanks at the hospital ran dry. For nearly 48 hours we had no water at all - either at the hospital or at the accommodation. So this is a genuine fetching-water-after-work picture. Our eyes were opened again to the hardships our patients experience as part of daily life. Not only is it a huge job to fetch water everyday, but the quality of the water was horrendous! We were extremely grateful when the water returned on Christmas Day (though for the accommodation complex it was another 72 hours wait as a valve had been closed by "someone who is against us"!)

Submitted by Ben