Publication of our 2024 Annual Report
2024 was a most successful year of growth and increasing influence for PatchSA. We are immensely proud of the significant achievements of a small team of people passionate about growing not only the provision of paediatric palliative care in South Africa, but also the footprint of our organisation. We invite you to read our 2024 Annual Report on the link below and celebrate these achievements with us.
Some of the pages found in the report:
Look back with us on a year of growth and new milestones in our recently published 2024 Annual Report. We are a small but dedicated team at PatchSA, determined to increase the number of healthcare providers in South Africa who know when and how to offer palliative care to very sick children and their families.
Many of our major achievements are summed up in the report from our outgoing chairperson, Dr Michelle Meiring.
Report from the outgoing chairperson
The past year was significant for PatchSA – especially as we celebrated an important milestone for the NGO – reaching our 10th Birthday. This was celebrated with a 10-year anniversary campaign, with reflections from key members who have been part of the network over the last decade. We also achieved a key organisational goal of moving from being a Voluntary Association to a registered Not For Profit Company (NPC) with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC).
This past year saw continued growth in membership, increasing visibility in social and broadcast media as well as expansion of our training offerings.
We had the most successful Hatson4CPC event ever, raising a record amount of funding to date but also more importantly, increasing awareness of the need for palliative care for children amongst the South African public. With the increasing involvement of schools, hospitals and the corporate sector in this campaign, PatchSA is becoming a household name.
Both our PatchSA and Patch Academy websites are thriving, thanks to improved Search Engine Optimization that’s driving more clicks and visits.
Leading online children’s palliative learning platform in Africa
I can also confidently say that the PatchSA Academy is the leading online children’s palliative care learning platform in Africa that boasts 13 stand-alone modules and now a comprehensive CPD accredited 9-month short course. A total of 1 576 health care professionals were registered on our modules this year with 70 of them enrolled on the 9-month short course in Children’s Palliative Care. Our introduction to palliative care course is now a compulsory part of undergraduate training for UKZN and UCT, and we are hoping other universities will follow suit.
It hasn’t all just been on-line though. This past year saw an impactful Perinatal Palliative Care workshop session being delivered at the Royal Hospital in Pietermaritzburg as well as a workshop at the 42nd Priorities in Perinatal Care Conference at the Goudini Spa in the Western Cape. In addition, face-to-face training was conducted at St Joseph’s Intermediate Care home in Cape Town.
This year saw the end of our last 3-year grant from Discovery that has made much of this development possible and also enabled us to generate training income that will sustain us into the near future. We are most grateful to Discovery for their belief in us and for supporting us over the past 6 years in total.
Thanks to our fundraiser Malcolm Kling, PatchSA has diversified its funding sources but is still in search of grant funding to replace the Discovery core. Exciting plans are underway to develop a new book and training material to improve the care and support for technology-dependent children especially those with tracheostomies and gastrostomies. We are excited to expand our partnership with Footprints4Sam who will be funding this next project.
Thanks to a small team who achieved so much
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to PatchSA’s small team who have achieved so much and turned a small network of volunteers, into a leading professional national organisation who are driving intermediate level palliative care training across SA. We salute Sue Boucher our Programme and Communications Manager, Tracy Rawlins our Master Trainer, Aimée Kingsley our Financial Manager who is supported by our bookkeeper Margaret Louw.
My sincere thanks also to my fellow board members including our new members Alyssa Saldanha and Mlulami Nxele.
It has been an absolute privilege for me to serve as Chair of PatchSA for the first 10 years of the organisations existence and I am exceptionally proud of what we have achieved. I feel confident as I step down from this chair, to hand over a well-oiled machine to the next Chairperson and wish them well in seeing PatchSA continue to go from strength to strength.
A luta Continua, Vitória é certa!
The struggle continues, victory is certain.
Dr Michelle Meiring
Outgoing Chairperson