BUTTERWORTH AND TAFALOFEFE HOSPITALS, EASTERN CAPE

MALAMULELE ONWARD RETURNS TO TAFALOFEFE

2009's outreach to Tafalofefe Hospital in the eastern region of the Eastern Cape involved more of everything – more children, more therapists, more equipment and more challenges.  And as they always do, the Malamulele Onward (MO) volunteers rose to the occasion in grand style and with great humour. Unexpectedly cold weather, wind and rain did not deter this intrepid group. Working in a large striped tent which took considerable strain from the inclement weather whilst avoiding the goats and stray dogs  was well …… all in a day’s work.  As always there was the odd puncture to fix and all that sewing to be done. However, trying to keeping each child’s equipment in the same place each day and trying to find it when you needed it was almost their undoing especially when the hospital admin staff  insisted on playing musical chairs with it all one evening resulting in spectacular disorder.   

Just over 60 children (yes, 60 children!) received five days of  intensive therapy from a multinational group of 23 Bobath / NDT trained therapists. Half the children were treated in the first week and the other half the following week. The children and caregivers all stayed at the hospital for the week so we were able to have access to them for the whole day and they also had lots of time to practice what they had been shown.

We were particularly thrilled to welcome Mary Gow,  retired senior physiotherapist from the Bobath Centre in London who joined us for both weeks of the intervention and then stayed to help with assessing all the children at the end of the two weeks. We also welcomed Brigitte Mueller
from Germany and Rebekka Huber from Switzerland who both there for two weeks; as were  Judeson Buwule from Uganda and Abdullah Makalla from Tanzania.  Cathy Pringle, speech therapist from Queenstown was also there for both weeks – this was Cathy’s fifth MO outreach project. Other MO “veterans” included Shelley Broughton (the team leader for the first week) and Dianne Zeller who have been involved since the very first pilot project to Malamulele in 2005; Mary Bornman, Philippa Spooner, Jean Elphick, Alison Crosbie, Tina Kirkby, Ingrid Vriend and Gillian Shead who all made return visits to Tafalofefe; and Leonie Kretschmar and Marilyn Herson who did their first outreach visit to Madwaleni earlier this year. First time (hopefully not the last time) MO volunteers included  Christa Agenbag, Cornelia van der Merwe and Herda Quin from Cape Town; Alice Yelland from Johannesburg and Diogo dos Santos from Mozambique. The team would not have been complete without our amazing orthotist and carpenter, Daniel Meyer from Jeffries Bay. He has become an indispensable part of the team.

Like all the MO outreach projects, it was two weeks of incredible hard work, but with so much fulfilment and fun. It is not just the caregivers who leave with new friends and skills, but the therapists themselves.

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