Remembering lives of Covid’s ‘lost butterflies’
HEALTH officials in the province marked World Palliative Care Day yesterday by highlighting how the Covid19 pandemic has affected families and claimed the lives of patients receiving palliative care support.
At Lentegeur Psychiatric Hospital, health MEC Dr Nomafrench Mbombo together with community members and health-care professionals, gathered to memorialise the lives lost as “lost butterflies” by lighting a candle in their honour.
Peter Titus, 78, from Westridge in Mitchells Plain, has been receiving home-based care since May after contracting Covid-19, which left him bedridden and short of breath. He now uses an oxygen machine.
Titus, after being admitted to Mitchells Plain District Hospital then transferred to the Hospital of Hope, was discharged in June but is still feeling the longer-term effects of Covid19 with his breathing affected. He is unable to leave his bed unassisted.
He receives care at home from his live-in carer and weekly visits by community health workers.
Health officials said palliative care is much more than only “end of life care”. It is an interdisciplinary team approach that improves the quality of life of patients, including adults and children and their families facing the problems associated with a life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial or spiritual.
Mitchells Plain resident Keith Griffiths shared his experience with palliative care after his wife was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumour and was given six to nine months to live.
“The seizures that she had, we managed to keep under control. Then she went back to work, against doctor’s orders,” said Griffiths
Griffiths said after his wife sat at her desk and could not remember her password, their family knew “there was no coming back from that”.
“We tried to make the most of it. Unfortunately, on November 28, which was also our wedding anniversary, I brought her into hospital in a coma. It was a completely devastating time for us,” said Griffiths.
This was when a doctor introduced Griffiths to palliative care.
“At that point, the emphasis was to manage the pain. My wife was then taken to St Luke’s Hospice in Kenilworth where I had the privilege of seeing palliative care in effect,” said Griffiths.
On December 3, Griffiths received a call from the hospice to say he needed be there immediately.
“Two taxis and a train later, I arrived at the hospice and was told she passed away 10 minutes ago. My consolation was that she was not alone during that time,” said Griffiths.