The Children’s Hospital Trust has just launched a campaign aiming to raise R150 million over the next two years for projects and programmes to help heal the children of The Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.
Cape Town, South Africa – Daniel Weber and his family are sharing a tragic story about their 2-year-old son Conner to increase awareness towards raising funds for the Hospital via The Children’s Hospital Trust.
Connor passed away in December 2017 after drowning in a bucket filled with water stored outside the house during the droughts in Cape Town.
“We rushed to the Emergency Centre at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, a memory spanning a few crucial minutes of anxiety as we hurried through passages with other families, children, medical equipment, an air of hope and, thankfully, dedicated medical professionals everywhere.”
Connor had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital, where the family spent five crucial days hoping to save Connor before he devastatingly passed on.
“Although our child passed away, we will always remember and be thankful to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. From the Doctors who provided such specialist care that it felt like Connor was the only child in the ward in a busy Hospital, to the amazing Nurses who prayed and sang with us every night”.
The Weber family, courageous in the memory and celebration of their son’s life, is sharing their child’s story to increase awareness towards raising funds for the Hospital via The Children’s Hospital Trust.
There are over 250,000 patient visits to the Hospital each year with over 45,000 critically ill or injured children coming through the doors of the Emergency Centre, just as Connor did. Their world-class paediatric healthcare services are saving patients’ lives across Africa.
The Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital was built in 1956 and remains a cornerstone of child healthcare in Southern Africa. The Hospital remains the largest, stand-alone tertiary hospital in sub- Saharan Africa dedicated entirely to children and manages 260 000 patient visits each year. Most of these patients are from poor and marginalised communities and one third are younger than a year. The Hospital’s patients are referred from the Western Cape, the rest of South Africa and our continent. The Hospital provides training to paediatric healthcare professionals from the entire sub-continent and does important research into the illnesses of childhood, which has a global impact.
Africa faces an exciting future filled with untapped opportunities and by 2050, nearly half of the world’s population. The future of the world is in the hands of these young people. All children will need access to quality and affordable healthcare so that they can grow up and benefit from the opportunities they will be exposed to rather than being a medical burden on society.
The Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in South Africa offers this. The doors were opened in 1956 as a living memorial for the World War II veterans, a legacy that has given life in remembrance to those who lost theirs. For the countless little patients treated and cured, it has been a place of marvels for the families and caregivers, a mainstay of hope, a place that provides care and reassurance at a time when their world is in turmoil. Over the years, the Hospital has gained global status as a:
- Leading Centre of paediatric excellence with respected medical leaders and researchers who have achieved many firsts in Africa
- Major teaching hospital whose influence has resulted in the Hospital becoming an asset on the continent of Africa
- Home to historic, ground-breaking surgeries and services
- Partner with the University of Cape Town, starting and building systems of healthcare that train and
support doctors and nurses throughout Africa
The challenge each year is that the number of children needing treatment, the number of parents needing comfort, hope and understanding, grows exponentially and the Hospital faces a continual battle to keep up with the increasing need. Over 250 000 visits to the Hospital were seen last year. It is a demanding, relentless and escalating battle, a battle the desperately stretched
Hospital staff fight every day. With all the will in the world, the government just cannot fund the growing needs. The Children’s Hospital Trust was established in 1994 and has now been asked to raise R150 million in the next two years for identified projects.
The children, their families and the Hospital staff need YOU now more than ever.
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