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Though the hospital embraces technology and the potential of advanced therapies, staff remain aware that patients can suffer from a range of comorbidities such as TB or HIV/Aids, and so treatments must be adapted accordingly.
“You can’t always import and apply the latest American or European therapies here without case-specific consideration. We strive to understand our patients and their specific socioeconomic vulnerabilities.”
De Quintal also understands that the hospital serves a diverse and vulnerable patient profile. “The best therapies and most advanced chemical interventions won’t make a difference if patients can’t get to the hospital for their treatments. Especially as fuel prices escalate, making transport costs even more unaffordable for the poor parents.”
The money distributed via the Citadel Philanthropy Foundation is used in many ways. “Transporting parents and a child can be part of the care regime,” said De Quintal.
Low literacy levels and health awareness in many of SA’s poor communities mean there’s often a stigma attached to cancer. Oncology patients can become ostracised and this is particularly traumatic for children undergoing treatment, rotating between the hospital and their communities, to recuperate.
Thus donations from the Citadel Philanthropy Foundation are also used to counter this stigma, something that happens outside the hospital’s grounds, but makes a worthy difference to its patients.
Irish singer Ronan Keating, who is a dedicated ambassador for the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, has personal experience of the devastating effects that the stigma attached to cancer can have.
His mother died of breast cancer, a highly treatable illness, at a young age (51) because regular breast examinations were considered an unnecessary awkwardness in their community, undoing the benefits of early detection.
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