


3 February 2009: A statue of
Blessed Gérard
(carved in wood by Gerhard Schinner of Ebnath/Germany), donated by
Mrs. Mechthilde Lagleder, has been received and
found its new home in our director's office.
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4 February 2009:
Blessed Gérard's Hospice
established a
Hospice &
Palliative Care group on XING:
Target group: All people involved in Hospice care and palliative care
Purpose: Professional exchange, encouragement, exchange of ideas, volunteerism
and professional recruitment
Planned topics: Best practice in Hospice Care, experiences, courses and training.
5 February 2009: Meeting of the Board of Directors and extraordinary meeting of
the
Dedicated Members of the
Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard.
Changes to our statutes are
decided upon. See the updated statutes at Code of
the Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard

6 February - 22 March 2009: Our active member Harry Hine from Germany comes to volunteer
again.



7 February 2009: Top officials of the government of the U.S.A. visit
Blessed
Gérard's Care Centre:
Jose Rafael Morales MD, FACOG, the Chief Medical Officer of the Global
HIV/AIDS Program and Rodrigo Boccanera, MPH, the Public Health Analyst from the Department of Health & Human Services of the Government of the
U.S.A., Celicia Serenata from the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) and Johan Viljoen, the Project Coordinator of the HAART
Programme of the South African Catholic Bishops' Conference come for a site visit to see our Care Centre and hear about its impact through
our HAART programme.
They were very impressed and expressed with emotion that
seeing the success of the PEPFAR Programme through the impact of our
HAART
Programme makes them proud and makes all the hard work so worthwhile.
Our visitors presented us with a plaque expressing that "This project is proudly
supported by the American people through PEPFAR". We are most grateful for the
substantial support of PEPFAR for our HAART Programme.
Johan
Viljoen commented on the visit: "Thank you for a wonderful visit on Saturday.
Everybody was highly impressed with the work being done at Blessed Gerard."
Rodrigo Boccanera commented: "It was an incredible insightful
visit and it is truly a model site."


8 February 2009: Sunday outing. Ntuthuko, Cebo, Bongani, Sipho, and Siya
from Blessed Gérard's
Children's Home explore
nature at Zinkwazi beach and meet the above "Sea-monster".

9 - 20 February 2009: Hennie Trollip, Tony Linden and a data capturers' team of
CRS came to establish their Patient Database System (PDS) to improve the
reporting and statistics on our HAART Programme. This is a major improvement and
we are most grateful! Well done!


10 February 2009: Having been invited by our member Consul Hans Weiss, Fr.
Gérard is admitted into the
Diplomatic Society of St. Gabriel "having demonstrated clear commitment to
the cause of bringing the peoples of the World together in the spirit of
fraternity and cooperation, and having expressed a clear committment to
fostering greater understanding among nations". ("Domine non sum dignus" Fr.
Gérard)

11 February 2008: We extended our networking structure by joining SAOPF, the
South African Older Persons' Forum
.


12 February 2009:
Blessed Gérard's Friendship Club, our social club for the
elderly, faithfully carries on its task to fight loneliness and isolation of
senior citizens.

12 February 2009: Our Medical Practitioner Dr. Khaya Nzimande examins a pregnant
AIDS patient from our HAART Programme with
the ultrasound scanner that was donated to us.
14 February 2009: Another Support Group of AIDS-patients - calling themselves "Mpilenhle-Group"
- who are being treated by Blessed Gérard's
Hospice HAART Programme is established with 10 persons attending.

15 February 2009: Sunday Outing of Children from
Blessed Gérard's Children's Home to
Durban. We bring Phiwa back after a weekend "at home" to his new school "Golden
Hours School", which he like very much.

17 February 2009: Children of Blessed
Gérard's Children's Home at one of their piano lessons.

18 February 2008: The Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard started a group on the
social network "Facebook":
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56437476230
18 February 2009: Dr. Nzimande, Harry Hine and Fr. Gérard attend a lecture of
the South African HIV Clinicians' Society at Nelson Mandela Medical School
in Durban about "BCG and the AIDS infected child".
19 February 2009: Amra Chakravarti and Karen Hinton of the Hospice Palliative
Care Society of South Africa (HPCA) workshop with our General Manager and
Hospice Management Team about our continued
way towards accreditation of our Hospice by the Council for Health Services
Accreditation on South Africa (COHSASA).
_small.jpg)
19 February 2009: Blessed Gérard's Hospice started a group on the social network
"Facebook":
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51896282443
20 - 22 February 2009: Tim Stohrer and Melanie come to visit us. They study
nursing management at the University of KZN. Tim had been a volunteer at our
Care Centre previously.

22 - 27 February 2009: Sr. Thandanani Simelane from
Blessed Gérard's Hospice HAART Programme attends the CRS/SACBC Nurses Training
Conference on HIV, ARV, TB and PMTCT in Bela Bela.

24 February 2009: A mobile office of the Department of Home Affairs parked
outside Blessed Gérard's Care Centre
assists us in getting Birth Certificates for children of
Blessed Gérard's Children's Home.

24 February 2009: The new jungle gymn at
Blessed Gérard's Pre-Primary School & Crèche donated by Herbert Becker of
Eintracht Frankfurt.
_small.jpg)
25 February 2009: Blessed Gérard's Children's Home started a group on the social
network "Facebook":
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52557424635
26 February 2009:
Dedicated Members' Meeting
of the Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard..


27 February 2009: The North Coast Courier publishes an article "A
father to 41 children" about Blessed
Gérard's Children's Home.

27 February 2009: Attenting to a dying patient at
Blessed Gérard's Hospice.

27 February - 1 March 2009: Mr & Mrs Hehl from Germany come to
visit us again.


28 February 2009: Blessed Gérard's
Malnutrition Clinic "in action"

28 February 2009: Attenting to another dying patient at
Blessed Gérard's Hospice.