INLSA

Past Red Cross War Memorial Hospital patient Vinolia Naidoo with Rahmlynn Luiters, 4, after handing her a doll and a teddy bear in the Oncology Unit.

MICHAEL ENGELMANN

Staff Reporter

PAST and present patients of Red Cross War Memorial Hospital celebrated Valentine’s Day together yesterday.

The event kicked off the start of the new Grateful Hearts Programme which gives former patients and families an opportunity to support current patients.

The volunteers spend time with patients, distribute gifts, talk with families, and share their experiences at the hospital with donors.

Vinola Naidoo was excited at the opportunity to give back: “I feel like I owe the life I have now to the hospital and all the support I received while here.”

Naidoo was treated by Red Cross over eight years and had a liver transplant there.

Originally from Durban, her family left their home and business so that she could receive treatment at Red Cross. She is now 22 and in her fourth year studying law at the University of the Western Cape.

Deidre Luiters, the mother of patient Rahmlynn Luiters, 4, said there was nothing like visits from former patients, “because they know exactly what we are going through”.

While Luiters is from Cape Town, families come from all over southern Africa for treatment at the Red Cross, the only specialist paediatric hospital in the region.

Luiters said visits from former patients meant the most to families from beyond the Western Cape.

“Being close to home I still have my support structure of family and friends. The hospital and volunteers provide that to families from far away.”

The Children’s Hospital Trust announced the Grateful Hearts Programme yesterday on their 18th birthday.

The trust is an independent non-profit organisation which raises funds for paediatric health care across the Western Cape.

It has raised more than R416 million since 1994.

michael.englemann@inl.co.za