KNYSNA NEWS - The Knysna Rotary Club has been making a big difference at the Knysna Provincial Hospital in recent times, lending a hand in improving infrastructure at the facility.
According to Knysna Rotarian Barbara Ikin, in July 2020 a Rotary Global Grant for the Knysna Provincial Hospital was launched to provide significant upgrades to the Knysna Provincial Hospital in two ways.
Firstly, the grant would provide much-needed palliative care equipment to enhance the hospital's ability to better treat, monitor, accommodate and care for end-of-life patients. A doctor's residence was renovated and converted into a self-sufficient, seven-bed palliative care facility, Lilita House.
It has its own kitchen, office and lounge facilities for visiting family members. A Rotary District Grant provided Covid-19-specific training for the staff of Lilita House. This centre is run by Knysna/Sedgefield Hospice with support from the hospital.
The second part of the grant involved the acquisition of a mobile state-of-the-art C-Arm X-ray unit for the hospital theatre. This unit is specialised to be used during surgery, enabling complicated procedures with greater accuracy and success.
The fundraising project largely focused on the hospital's urological surgery programme which could previously only take place at larger surgical centres such as George or Port Elizabeth. Since receiving the new machine, the hospital has been able to perform over 40 urological procedures. It must be taken into account that elective surgeries have been largely postponed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before having this C-Arm X-ray unit, treatment waiting time was three to six months. Now a patient requiring surgery has a maximum waiting time of two weeks.
As reported by Dr Andries Brink, another significant benefit of the C-arm is that its application is not limited to urological procedures. Since the acquisition of the machine, the hospital's team of surgeons has used it in numerous non-urological cases, including intra-operative cholangiograms for gall-bladder disease, reduction of fractures, removal of foreign bodies and placement of oesophageal stents.
The hospital is now able to provide a much more comprehensive and efficient surgical service to the people of Knysna.
Rotary would like to thank the hospital staff under the leadership of Dr Brink as well as Knysna/Sedgefield Hospice for embracing these new assets so enthusiastically and providing such superb medical service to Knysna.
The Rotary Clubs participating in this grant were Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, six clubs in Canada and two clubs in Alaska.
The Rotary Club of Brampton Ontario (Canada) was the primary international partner.
The total amount involved was just over R950 000. The hospital funded all building-related costs and Rotary supplied equipment and furniture.
The addition to the hospital's palliative care unit, Lilita House, which was opened last year.
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