Love blooms in all places including hospitals; the Heroes of Groote Schuur celebrate love by sharing the love stories that started within the hospital.
Cape Town, South Africa (15 February 2022) – Heroes of Groote Schuur is a Facebook page dedicated to highlighting the amazing people who work or visit the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. This week love is all around, including the hospital.
The page is highlighting all the incredible working being done by the staff who keep everything running smoothly. Heroes featured on the page often have the most interesting jobs. In the most recent post, they decided to celebrate love that has blossomed at the hospital.
“For a hospital as large as Groote Schuur, it’s no surprise that it has provided the backdrop for many a romance. We speak to a few employees and patients whose love stories started here.”
Meet the couples who can credit the hospital for their love stories.
Brenda-Lee Katzen-Thorn and Wilfred Thron
Brenda-Lee Katzen, an admin officer in Outpatients, met her husband Wilfred Thorn, an outpatient, in late 2018 after one of the clerks introduced them. They were married in 2021, two days after Brenda-Lee’s 60th birthday, and have just celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
“Wilfred had come to clerk Nokuphila Luzipo for his repeat medication, and because she knew he was single, told him that she wanted to introduce him to me. I walked out and I saw this man with these green eyes and he said to me, ‘I just love your bossiekop’ and that’s how we connected. We chatted via WhatsApp, and we went on our first date in February 2019.
After our second date I thought, ‘I just love the way this man treats me, like a queen,’ and so we started dating. And then, when I left for a holiday to Australia in the April, he asked me to marry him as he was saying goodbye at departures. I knew this was my soul mate. We married in January last year.
I’ve never been married before. He was married before, but his wife passed away seven years ago. I could see he knows how to treat a woman – he’s so caring and attentive. He’s such a gentleman. I used to pray to God to bring me a God-fearing man, and the Lord sent me him. At a spiritual level, we connect. We do our devotions together at night. My family love him to bits, because they can see how he treats me.
My life has changed completely. I’m living my best life, thanks to him and to God.”
Tamzin Lee and Kobus Weideman
Tamzin Lee and Kobus were both patients at Groote Schuur when they met. They have since married, and had baby Bailey. Tamzin tells the Heroes of Groote Schuur more:
“While I was on dialysis, I met my wonderful husband Kobus. We were both attending training sessions to become mentors at the Kidney Care Clinic (a clinic for adolescent patients) so that we could assist other patients with any difficulties that they might be experiencing.
After my transplant, I recovered very well. With the support of my family and now husband (fiancée at the time), I had a swift recovery and am still in very good health.”
Henry and Tercia October
Registered Nurse Henry October and Radiography Supervisor Tercia October will celebrate their 27th wedding anniversary on February 18.
“We met at Rochester House in 1991,” says Tercia. “When we were training we both stayed there as we are both not from Cape Town. I’m from Mossel Bay and Henry is from Bredasdorp.
We worked in different departments, so we seldom saw each other during work time, which meant it wasn’t difficult to work together. And a bonus was the fact that we could travel together to work most days. But we worked day and night shift, so it was challenging sometimes when our children were small.
We have two boys, Jamie (24) and Dylan (18). God willing, we will have grandchildren in the future. Jamie finished his degree and is currently doing an internship. Dylan is in matric this year.”
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