Hospice continues link to Africans

Doctors, social workers and staff from The Community Hospice of the Albany Diocese recently spent a week visiting and educating their counterparts in South Africa.

The Community Hospice has been partnering with the Diocese of Rustenberg, South Africa, for several years to help build its Hospice programs.

On this trip, Community Hospice director Phil DiSorbo delivered grants of $8,000 to South Coast Hospice and $10,000 to Tapologo Hospice. The money was raised by churches and individuals in the Albany Diocese who donated to The Community Hospice Africa Fund, and by St. Peter's Healthcare Services employees, who contribute one dollar of their pay each week to the fund.

Through the donations, South Coast Hospice has been able to open a daycare center for rural children whose parents have AIDS, and Tapologo Hospice is nearing completion of a facility to house 20 AIDS patients. The facility will also include a training center for staff and volunteers who work with patients in their homes.

Many people in the U.S. feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the AIDS pandemic in Africa; in a 2001 interview with The Evangelist, Bishop Kevin Dowling of the Rustenberg Diocese estimated that 20 to 25 percent of the population in his province were infected with the AIDS virus. 

But Mr. DiSorbo said that at the Tapologo and South Coast Hospices, "we're dealing with places that are making huge strides" in combating the disease. He urged Catholics in the Albany Diocese to keep donating to the fund, noting that "hopefully, this fall we'll have more money to give." 

(Donations to The Community Hospice Africa Fund can be sent to The Community Hospice, 295 Valley View Rd., Rensselaer, NY 12144. For information, call 285-8150.)

(5/27/04)