By Wendy Zvakawapano | Project Coordinator
On Monday 16th April 2018, our archiving team from the Harare International School met for an interview with Val Maasdorp, Island’s Counselling and Support Consultant. Val joined the then Island Hospice Service, now Island Hospice and Healthcare, in 1986. She holds a vast wealth of knowledge and the two young interviewers grabbed the opportunity to learn as much about the history of Island as they could before Val attended to her next client.
Val’s work involves working with families and individuals providing counselling support as well as working through the process of dying.
The first HIV case was registered in 1986 and for Val, one thing to note in the work of Island has been the steady increase in HIV related cancers. To date, Island has a portfolio of both HIV and cancer cases as well as other palliative care conditions.
Val’s major concern is that while the disease burden continues to grow, the country’s economy has depreciated posing challenges for the organization to secure adequate funding to cater for all who need Island’s services. In light of the economic challenges, Island developed outreach clinics in hard to reach areas, in a bid to reach out to more people in need of quality palliative care. The teams that ran these outreach clinics were originally called Home-Based Care teams.
The work of Island continues to grow as it now includes trauma cases. Not only is the work confined to clinical, Island has trained medical students from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), Medical College since the 1980’s in palliative care; and Val has been part of this initiative to date. Val highlighted that Island has standing partnerships with Parirenyatwa group of Hospitals, the UZ Medical School, Spiritual leaders in various communities who include Pastors, Apostolic sect leaders as well as the African traditional healers.
While this documentation process may be an assignment for the kids, they have found themselves becoming more and more a part of the story of Island. Afika, one of the interviewees constantly drew connections from her own experiences.
It is our hope, that at the end of this documentation process, we capture the essence of the development and growth of the palliative care movement in Zimbabwe, and that more people appreciate that the need for the service continues to grow each year, and so we all have a part to play.
More in the next edition…..
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