Cape Town - Humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers have once again stepped up to assist and announced a contribution of R5 million to Groote Schuur Hospital for catch-up surgeries.
Gift of the Givers founder, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, said the hospital’s new surgical head, Dr Lydia Cairncross will be supervising the catch-up of 1 500 backlogged surgical procedures for various medical conditions which were delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Gift of the Givers has been making major interventions in the health sector including supporting 210 hospitals nationwide during Covid-19, providing personal protective equipment, scrubs, pulse oximeters, non-contact thermometers, video laryngoscopes, high-flow nasal oxygen machines, continuous positive airway pressure (CPap) machines, medicines, food for patients, motivational goody bags for health-care workers, paying for additional support staff, drilling boreholes and carrying out infrastructure upgrade,” Sooliman said.
He added that in the Western Cape, the Freesia Ward in Mitchells Plain received a R10m upgrade from the organisation.
Sooliman said they are still waiting on written confirmation from the Western Cape Health Department to start with upgrades at the Eerste River Hospital.
“We have begun support for cataract catch-up surgery at Eerste River Hospital and will continue for the rest of 2022,” he said.
robin.francke@inl.co.za
IOL