Party joy for young cancer patients
PATIENTS aged between two months and 13 years old at Frere Hospital’s children’s oncology ward got a glimpse of the joys of Christmas at the annual Children’s Haematology Oncology Clinics (CHOC) ward party yesterday.
About 30 little ones – some attached to drips, others wearing safety masks – received gifts and treats while their mothers were presented with handbags crammed with toiletries and cosmetics.
Seated around a gaily decorated table on little colourful chairs, the children were handed wrapped gifts including colouring-in books, toy cars, and flashing rubber balls. They smiled when they received their gifts from members of the Border Canoe Club, but there was a stillness not usually associated with children at a party.
Their mothers made up for their quiet children and frequently broke into hymns of thanks.
According to CHOC social worker Thandile Cuntu, the children, some outpatients of the cancer ward, have been diagnosed with kidney, brain and liver cancer, leukaemia, Hodgkins Lymphoma and retinolblastoma. “I have been here for four years but have never got used to kids dying,” she said.”
“Today is about people showing them that they care and pray for them.”
CHOC Eastern Cape manager Debbie Kleineberg said the organisation had been throwing Christmas parties in the ward for 11 years.
“The children make decorations which are stuck to the windows and it’s part of their education about the importance of celebrating the day. I think many of the rural children never get gifts and it’s lovely just to see the happiness on their faces.”
Border Canoe Club secretary Hilary Roux said she had initiated the club’s participation in the event six years ago: “Our children get so much while some of these children may not even make Christmas, so instead of the paddlers’ children receiving gifts at the canoe club, their parents donate them to the children in the oncology ward.”
For mom Asanda Ndumela, whose daughter Emihle, 9, has been in the ward for three months, the best Christmas present was that yesterday marked her last day in hospital. —