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“So now I can come every day?” exclaimed an elated Uncle David, who is one of our day hospice patients. HCA Day Hospice is to Uncle David, the safest place to be. He was momentarily disappointed when he thought that all of our facilities would be closed, until we explained the situation to him.
These last three months have been very difficult for our patients and our staff. With enhanced precautionary measures, the most vulnerable and needy patients vie for the limited number of day care places in our Day Hospice. Our clinical teams continue undaunted, to visit our patients in their homes. Our non-clinical teams faithfully work on different methods of engaging our volunteers, our donors, our friends and supporters.
Amidst these tough times, the silver linings that we are blessed with, are immeasurable. HCA’s services are considered an essential service. Hence our multi-disciplinary teams continue to provide care and support to patients with life-limiting illnesses and to their loved ones, at no cost.
Although many donors and friends have kindly supported us in ordinary times, we noticed an increase in support during this extraordinarily difficult period. Many Foundations have generously donated the much-needed dollars to us, with no strings attached. The money that we receive, goes a long way to supporting our operations. Many generous donors have also answered our pleas for more support and we are appreciative of their assistance. Online fundraising platforms have also waived the transaction fees during this period, enabling us to receive 100% of all donations. Governmental agencies have also helped generously with subventions for our beneficiaries.
More organisations and individuals have graciously provided meals for our Day Hospice patients. Groups who used to cook and deliver food to our patients, now either donate the money for us to purchase the meals, or they order from another social enterprise and have the food delivered to us, helping two organisations at the same time – how wonderful!
We have had corporations providing us with donations in kind. We have gratefully accepted all donations of the much-needed masks. While there have been many of these generous sponsors, medical masks are never enough. Our mask utilisation is high as we have over 60 clinical team members; each of them seeing at least four patients daily. Other organisations have provided us PPEs, personal protection equipment and also ThermoScans so that we can efficiently monitor the temperatures of our Day Hospice patients and our staff.
We also received gifts of beverages, tiger balm and analgesic patches for our patients. Yet other organisations including our own volunteer Council and Committee members, have provided our staff with bottles of Vitamin C, moisturising disinfecting hand rubs and cookies, bundled with encouraging words – certainly a huge morale booster.
For our most needy patients during this challenging time, we received offers of three caskets. We are deeply grateful for this vital necessity.
Our volunteers too, continued to give us their time. They have bravely volunteered to escort our patients for medical appointments, volunteered to deliver meals and grocery items to our vulnerable patients.
I am deeply humbled by the generosity and care shown by everyone. I am grateful and take this opportunity to thank everyone for their love.
No gift is considered too small. Our entire HCA team is appreciative of the love and care showered on us by all our generous friends and supporters. Your love and care make a difference to our patients, including Uncle David.
Thank you for making our journeys that much more meaningful!
angie
