February News

The holiday-atmosphere here at ThembaCare slowly faded this week, as our children returned to crèche and patients who visited their families over Christmas returned to our hospice. We are expecting a few new admissions in the following weeks and a terminally ill one-year old baby in need of specialized palliative care is expected to arrive tomorrow. Please pray with us for this little girl and her family.

The children truly experienced some sea and sun this month and a Condor filled with excited staff members, babies and toddlers visited Strand Beach and Sea Point beach on two occasions for some swimming, sand-castles and ice-cream. The older babies played in the shallow water and our very sociable toddlers quickly made friends with the other children on the beach. They returned with sticky hands, sandy hair and very sleepy eyes!

We have welcomed Zoe to ThembaCare this week and she will spend a little of her time here each week, while her husband teaches at School of Hope next door. We are also looking forward to meeting the two occupational therapy students who will arrive here at the end of this month.

We are extremely grateful that one of our patients, a 6 year old boy who has been with us for over a year, was finally discharged into his aunt and uncle’s care. We are still awaiting foster placement for two of our toddlers and we are trusting that their stories will evolve just as beautifully.

We are blessed to witness daily how our patients grow, learning to crawl, stand and eventually run and gain the weight they need to develop into healthy, active children. Thank you to all donors and volunteers who contribute to making this possible!