Children who suffer from various forms of cancers will now receive professional and comprehensive healthcare services at the newly built Pediatric Oncology Wards at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
These wards (43, 44) will be officially opened tomorrow, Friday, 26 October 2012. Each ward has 20 beds. One of them caters for children between zero and seven years and the other admits patients aged between seven and 19 years.
The children who are not only from Soweto but also from peripheral hospitals and outside the province will receive services such as counselling, chemotherapy, blood and blood product transfusion are offered to children.
The cancers that affect children most often occur in the developing cells like bone marrow, blood, kidneys and nervous system tissues. The most common cancer is leukemia followed by brain and a wide variety of other tumours. Life-threatening blood disorders include aplastic anaemia, thalassaemia and ITP.
This initiative is a public private partnership between the Gauteng Department of Health and Childhood Cancer Foundation (CHOC).
Through their cycling challenge, CHOC raised funds to upgrade the wards as well as providing accommodation, food and a vehicle that transports patients and their parents from the CHOC house in Diepkloof to the hospital.
In South Africa, one in 600 hundred children is affected by cancer before the age of 16. The encouraging news is that if diagnosed early, 70%-85% of children can be cured.
Childhood cancers require specialist paediatric treatment by a paediatric oncologist and comprise of chemotherapy, surgery or radiation. In some cases a combination of these treatments is used while bone marrow or stem cell transplantation is done in certain situations.
Journalists are invited to the official opening:
Date: Friday, 26 October 2012
Time: 14h00
Venue: Paediatric Oncology ward, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto
Enquiries:
Simon Zwane
Cell: 082 551 9892
Province
