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Breede River Hospice is a registered Non-Profit Company with PBO status, actively making a difference in the Langeberg District of the Western Cape (South Africa) for the last 25 years. We cover all five rural towns, namely Ashton, Bonnievale, McGregor, Montagu, Robertson as well as all farms and informal settlements. This covers an area of approximately 4 518 km² and has a population of 117 450.
Our core business is providing free palliative care and support to patients diagnosed with a life threatening or life limiting illness. The care is extended to include the family and loved ones in the services, to ensure holistic care is provided. On average we care for 80 patients per month (all in different categories), whilst also supporting their family, as noted above. Palliative Care is a specialised area that is seen as a basic human right by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Currently in South Africa, palliative care has not yet been integrated into the national health system and is currently provided by NGOs such as Breede River Hospice.
We run two additional programmes in partnership with the Department of Health, namely an Intermediate Care Facility (Ashton) and a Home and Community Based Care Programme. These two programmes supplement the work we already do in the community.
As part of our sustainability programmes, we operate two successful charity shops in Montagu and Robertson. We also manage a specialised 9-bed dementia residence in Ashton, to not only fill a need in the community, but also to generate our own income and become self sustainable.
Breede River Hospice is a large organisation with an annual budget of R15 million. We are very fortunate that the Department of Health annually commit to programmatic funding, however this is directly allocated to our Home and Community Based Care Programme and the Intermediate Care Facility. To offer our free 24/7 Palliative Care service, we employ a doctor (limited hours per day), a patient care manager (professional nurse), palliative care nurses, a social worker and social and spiritual counsellor. In addition to the salaries of our patient care team, we also need to cover operational costs like petrol, maintenance of our vehicles and administrative costs. As an organisation we work very hard to generate our own income through initiatives such as: our hospice shops, residential facility for people living with Dementia as well as friends of Hospice who gives monthly donations. However, the area of our work not funded and where we find it most difficult to secure funding is for our core business of palliative care, where we need to raise +/- R128 000 per month. Over the last few years, we have seen a change in the funding landscape where the focus has shifted from health aspects to areas such as early childhood development, sustainable energy, and conservation etc. Funding available for health is mostly focused on health research. We appeal to our communities and funders to support this very worthy cause.
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