|
14 June 2011
Dear Friends
Working in the field of children’s palliative care must be one of the most rewarding fields for any member of the multi-disciplinary team. Despite many challenges, the children and their families continue to inspire with their courage in the face of a life-limiting or life-threatening illness. These wonderful children also impact on the lives of volunteers working in the programmes.
Working with life limited children can be life changing
A recent e-mail from a young man who worked for three weeks in a children’s in-patient unit, spoke of the experience being “life-changing” and how has affected the way he experiences life. He and his wife are in training for a half-marathon to support the unit, and this made me wonder at how many people lives have been affected by children’s hospice and palliative care programmes.
Volunteers
Our volunteers are part of the strong foundation we now have in South Africa, with an increasing interest in children’s palliative care; more professionals being trained in children’s palliative care, more hospices and other organizations offering palliative care for children, and an awareness of the different diagnoses that would benefit from palliative care interventions. In Africa, we have identified the need for children with severe malnutrition to access palliative care. If you are not sure about which children will benefit from palliative care, please read through the ACT categories on this website for more information.
Join our monthly discussions
Our dream is that all children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions will have access to palliative care provided by staff trained in this discipline. Please join into our monthly discussions on the Baobab website and send through any queries you have regarding care of a patient, a family member or a friend, and we will send the enquiries to our group of children’s palliative care experts from different disciplines. We would like the Baobab website to be an active forum for discussions and developments in the field.
We are always grateful for information on your programmes or stories of children facing life-limiting conditions. Together we can make South Africa a Beacon centre for children’s palliative care in the world.
Yours in the care of our children,
Joan Marston
Project Manager
Beacon Centres for Children’s Palliative Care in Africa
E-mail: joan.marston@icpcn.co.za
|
