Heartbroken families tell of fears for future

LEONARD Fourie bursts into tears when he talks about his sister, Terzha.

Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth, Terzha was placed in the Lorraine Frail Care Centre 25 years ago.

“She can’t do anything for herself, but her brain is still good. She knows what is going on,” Fourie said.

“We had nothing but excellent care from Lorraine Frail Care.”

Fourie, 77, of Rowallan Park, said they found out the centre was closing when they went to visit his sister last week.

“I think she might have heard the other patients talking because she was just repeating: ‘You will not take me away from here’,” he said.

Fourie’s wife Liz, 73, said they were not able to take care of Terzha as they were also looking to move to an old-age home.

“It is a bloody disgrace what is happening here,” Liz said.

“They have been taking care of her so well.”

Maureen Fouche, 71, said her daughter, Fiona, 46, had been at the centre for 18 years.

“They have been absolutely marvellous with her,” she said.

Fouche, a widow, lives in a garden flat with her family and is already taking care of another disabled child.

“When Fiona was a baby she developed a brain infection. She is paralysed. She can’t even talk,” she said.

“I can’t even lift her legs to put a nappy on her. I don’t know what I am going to do.

“At the centre, they told us that if the department has to move the patients, it can move them anywhere – even to Johannesburg.

“I don’t know what I will do then. How am I going to know that they are taking care of my child?”

Brenda van Schalkwyk, 62, said her brother, Hans Claassen, 55, had been at the Algoa Frail Care Centre since suffering a stroke in 2013.

“He is doing much better now. They have taken such good care of him,” she said.

“I have phoned around Port Elizabeth to see if someone will take him, but they are all full.

“I have told him that if they arrive at that centre with a truck or a bus and tell him to bring his clothes, he must not do it. He must just stay there and wait for me.”

Van Schalkwyk said she had been visiting the adult residents of the centre for years.

“I always take 100 packets of chips and 100 cookies. You can’t help but love them,” she said.