Angels of mercy get by on a wing and a prayer

26/07/2008 17:34 - (SA)
Angels of mercy get by on a wing and a prayer

Loyiso Sidimba

KEW, north of Johannesburg, looks like any other industrial area, but on Eleventh Road the Banakekeleni Hospice is a haven for the township’s dying.

Founder and project manager Rose Kubayi, 37 other women and a handful of men have dedicated their lives to caring for those who have no one else to turn to in their last hours. Banakekeleni has between 15 and 20 patients and survives on donations.

A former English, Afrikaans and history teacher at Realogile High School, the 62-year-old Kubayi resigned in 2000 after pupils increasingly approached her to tell her about their HIV status or their parents’ poor health.

“We started preparations the following year and registered with the Department of Social Development in May 2003. Our first admission was that September,” she says.

It was hard work, and two women volunteers from her church soon gave up, followed by another three. Luckily she then teamed up with the hospice’s two current co-ordinators, Grace Maratlulle and Josephine Makondo, who have been there ever since.

Kubayi says they started with no money at all, and survived the first few months thanks to donations from individuals, companies, hotels and hospitals.

“We got financial assistance from the health department only in 2004,” she says.

“We do not admit patients from Alexandra only, but also from as far away as Mpumalanga and Brits in North West,” says Kubayi.

Although policy dictates that a patient pays an admission fee of R500, many are unable to do so. “We admit patients even if they do not have money, but we organise disability grants for them.”

Of the 37 staff members, two are retired nurses who supervise the 16 care-givers, with a doctor coming in voluntarily whenever possible.

At Banakekeleni there is no fixed salary: workers receive stipends, and these were secured only after the health department started funding the institution.

One Alexandra resident who goes the extra mile to help is a 65-year-old devout Christian, Nelly Hlongwane, whom Kubayi says is one of the hospice’s pillars of strength.

Kubayi says Hlongwane has been sacrificing a day every week for two years. She cleans the hospice while fasting the entire day.

“I help those who are sick, to thank God for giving me good health; but if I had more I would also donate,” Hlongwane says.

Local churches help a lot, with some offering prayer services.

The warehouse had no electricity, but employees of Nashua Kopano and the company’s finance department, with the help of City Power, helped connect the hospice in 2004.

There are still problems, though, such as thieves breaking into the storeroom. Banakekeleni’s two security guards have no training.

For now, however, that is the least of their troubles. A former tenant of the warehouse, whom Kubayi refused to name, has been threatening the hospice with eviction since it opened, even involving his lawyers.

“When a businessman wanted to buy the warehouse for us and requested a title deed, he failed to give us one,” she says.

A search through the deeds register yielded nothing, and the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry, whose official opened the building 21 years ago according to a commemorative plaque, has not been helpful.

When they took over the warehouse it had been unused for six years. “It took us all of 2001 to clean this place; it was very dirty. Alexandra youth organised themselves and asked for donations of paint from local businesses,” Kubayi says.

Among the corporates helping Banakekeleni is the Johannesburg human resources office of accounting firm Deloitte’s.

When City Press visited the hospice this week, Johannesburg-based radio station 94.7 Highveld Stereo was there donating several boxes of blankets.

Makhosi Chiwashira facilitates Deloitte’s partnership with the hospice. Chiwashira hopes their division will raise enough money to buy two oxygen pumps, a washing machine and a tumble-dryer.

They have also adopted Banakekeleni as a fund-raising cause for next month’s Deloitte’s Global Impact Day, which is dedicated to volunteering in poor communities.

# Banakekeleni Hospice can be contacted on 011-443-2010.