Western Cape
The Western Cape branch is the newest of the Bigshoes branches having opened its doors in 2010. Our Rondebosch office is conveniently situated behind the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. This branch currently only provides a Paediatric Palliative Care service but we hope to start running the other Bigshoes programmes in the future.
The TeamThe Western Cape team is a small team of dedicated medical staff and a group of volunteers who provide administrative and social work support. This team is making in developing PPC as a recognised medical discipline in secondary and tertiary level hospitals and providing training to medical students. |
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Bigshoes Western Cape:
- PPC provides specialist services to over 200 children each year!
Current Activities
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PPC |
Cape Town Bigshoes offer weekly PPC and oncology ward rounds at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. They also have weekly multidisciplinary “pain meetings” with the hospital staff. The team offers a weekly outpatient pain clinic and provide input to Groote Schuur, Mowbray Maternity and Nazareth House. |
The estimated prevalence of chronic illness in children in South African children is 20%. A chronic condition is one that is expected to last at least one year. Approximately 1/5 of these children will have life-limiting or life threatening condition requiring palliative care. A rough estimate of the number of children living with a chronic illness in the Western Cape based on the mid-year (2009) population census for the Western Cape is 397 580 (20% of the 1 987 900 children living in the Western Cape). Approximately 7 9 516 of these children (1/5) would require palliative care. Chronic non-communicable diseases (eg liver, renal and neurological conditions, genetic diseases and congenital abnormalities) are the predominant reason for admission to paediatric palliative care programmes in the developed world but are also important in developing countries. Developing countries however also carry a high burden of communicable chronic disorders such as HIV and TB. Although the Western Cape has a lower ANC prevalence for HIV (14%) than other provinces, the province has the highest TB infection rate (441/100 000/year) in the country. TB is an important cause of mortality and morbidity in the Western Cape and MDR or XDR TB may in some cases be incurable.