Sedgefield Hospice

The Knysna – Sedgefield Hospice falls under the national body called the Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa. It is a Non Governmental Organisation that is funded by donations and the sizable income produced by their popular and well-supported shops. HPCA now has signed partnerships with 16 different organisations to improve and co-ordinate health-care to terminally ill patients.

The local Knysna – Sedgefield Hospice has an annual budget of 7.6 million and employs 43 people. 73% of its income goes directly into patient care. It is fleshed out by many volunteers supporting the organisation. 

Sr Hilary Grey is the CEO and Clinical Head. Kathy Michaelides, the Chairperson and Roger Naisby, the Financial Director. Are all highly trained in Palliative Care and support. We have a dedicated Hospice Doctor, Dr Janet Stanford, competent professional nursing staff and care-workers. Our clinical staff work long, hard hours and are dedicated to our Hospice patients. They are experts in their field. Hospice is fortunate to have caring and committed people at its helm and high calibre people working within its organisation.

Hospice care is free to everyone with life threatening diseases such as HIV- AIDS, TB, Cancer, etc. but by far the biggest load is chronic care where patients are helped to cope with the painful restrictions their illnesses place upon them.

"You matter because you are. You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all that we can not only to help you die peacefully, but to live fully until you die." - Dame Cecily Saunders, Founder of Hospice

Palliative Care

Sister Henriette Christie oversees 46 +/- patients with the assistance of the home-based carers, Sheila and Rolene in the Sedgefield, Wilderness, Karatara, Barrington and Rheenendal areas.

Marline, the Social Worker visits candidates who apply for Hospice care and refers those who qualify for their services to Sister Henriette.

The Sedgefield Hospice service provides pain and symptom management for patients, practical advice for their family and carers, emotional counselling for patients and bereavement counselling for their loved ones to give them support and comfort whilst going through the grieving process. Where necessary, wheelchairs, bedpans and special bedding to help avoid bedsores are loaned to patients.

Day Care Clinic

The day-care clinics that used to be provided every alternate Monday prior to Covid where roughly +/- 20 patients participated in activities like knitting peak caps and hand sewing and were given a light meal, has not yet resumed.

At present, as an alternative, soup and sandwiches are delivered to patients' homes, offering some relief which they are most grateful for in these difficult economic times.

Sedgefield Hospice Charity Shoppe

1 Mar 2011 was a landmark day for Sedgefield Hospice as the public face of this great NGO, the Hospice Shoppe moved out of their cramped premises to a fine suite of rooms next to the Pre-owned Furniture Shop. The new premises comprise a spacious shop, storeroom, sorting room for incoming donated goods, nurse’s office and counselling room, ablutions and kitchen and a few other spare rooms that will address their needs for a good many years to come.

A kind donor who wishes to remain anonymous has contributed shelving for books, rails for the display of curtains, clothing rails and shoes racks. All in all the place looks very presentable and now sale goods have the space to be attractively displayed.

In May 2022 Michele McKenzie was employed as the Sedgefield Shop Manager. She works with a team of  +/- 17 volunteers. They sort, cost and label all the donated items for sale. New volunteers are always welcome as people come and go and relief stand-ins for those on holiday are frequently needed.

Currently the shop is open 6 days a week and closed on public holidays:

Monday to Thursday 10am – 12:45pm 
Friday  10am – 4pm 
Saturdays 9:30am –12:30pm
Tel: 044-343 1722

Donations of unwanted goods ranging from shoes and clothing to furniture, kitchen appliances, household linen and bric-a-brac are always gratefully accepted.

When valuable items are donated such as antiques, books, vintage clothing etc. they are offered to specialist shops to raise more money for Hospice. Toiletries are kept for Bingo prizes. Donated wool is used by volunteers to make jersies, hats and blankets for school children, the sick and the elderly.

There is always a high demand for books. and throughout the year, cake sales, raffles, an annual auction, reconditioned Christmas cards and tin collections are also used to raise funds for Knysna - Sedgefield Hospice. 

Clean bedding and pillows are given to Sister Henriette for needy patients. Hospice networks with many other organisations to assist the vulnerable, ill and destitute in our local communities and helping places like Rondevlei School, Masithandane and Blanco in George. They have also come to the assistance of people who’ve lost everything when their homes/shacks have burned down supplying them with clothing and household goods.

Sedgefield Hospice Shoppe History

Sedgefield falls under Knysna which was started in 1986 when a generous local businesswoman, Peggy Grinaker, donated a house in Hunters Home to Hospice. B.O.N.D. House as it is known is an acronym of all Peggy’s family members that she lost to terminal illnesses. Many Sedgefield volunteers actively and generously supported the Knysna hospice for years travelling through weekly to work in the shop and/or attend meetings.

One day Wynne Humphries was travelling back from working in the Knysna shop with Peter Beer when she broached the topic of starting a shop in Sedgefield. His support for her idea gave Wynne the encouragement to put whole-hearted effort into the project. She still had to get approval from the Knysna board.

Meanwhile she had leaflets made that were distributed to the Smutsville church on Sunday to see if they were in favour of the concept and garnered further support from the local community. A friend assisted her to find an affordable shop in the Forest Lodge complex that was owned by generous and good-hearted Sedgefield residents, Gerry and Cathy Stavros so by the next Knysna meeting she was so organised it was agreed that the Sedgefield Hospice Shoppe could go ahead!

Wynne borrowed trestles from builders (their names stuck on underneath so they would get them back) to display items for sale. She had a table for the cash box and with the help of many local contributors and enthusiastic volunteers the shop was opened on 1 November 2000. Wynne said she took in R1800-00 the first day.

The shop opened every day thereafter from 10am -12:30pm and Fridays 10am -12:45pm and 2pm - 4:15pm, Saturdays 10am-12pm.Wynne was there 6 days a week but after losing her beloved husband a year before, it gave her a reason again to get up in the morning and she loved doing what she did - interacting with people, pricing the sales goods and making money for Hospice.

Different volunteers would assist her on different days throughout the week. She would often tell the locals who came in with their week’s wages on a Friday afternoon, to go and buy groceries for their families first and then come back to spend some of their left-over money in the shop.

She said she would sometimes let something go for less than the marked price if the purchaser really wanted or needed it because the secret of the success of the shop was turning over the sales goods and people who felt they had been given a bargain would come back again and again!

Here are some of the volunteers she remembers who worked with her in those early years – Marie Anderson, Margaret Beattie, Elna Beard, Hannalore Becker, Pat Colne, Maria Connolan, Margie Fagan, Andre Gardiner, Joyce Hampson, Barbara Humphrey, Hennie Kombrink, Lynn Lapham, Lynn Parsons, Anne Rukin, Cathy Siebert, Zena Small, Margaret Stevenson, Natalie Sweet, Sylvia Taylor, Marlene Twycross, and Margaret Underwood. 

From the beginning the shop did so well that within a month Wynne asked Cathy Stavros if Hospice could also rent the shop next door for a trial period of 2 months as she felt things might flag after the Christmas season. They didn’t and both shops continued to flourish until the necessary move into the new premises in March 2011.

Wynne had in her house a picture by artist, Lorna Popjoy who donated it to Hospice to be raffled. When Brigitte Richter, one of the volunteers won it, she gave it to Wynne insisting she should have the picture as it was a piece of history recording the view she once had of the reeds on the Swartvlei Lagoon at the bottom of her garden. The young tree in the picture is no more as it crashed down into a garden nearby falling over when the ground had been waterlogged and destabilised as a result of the 2007 floods. It narrowly missed causing serious damage to the house on the property.

Wynne passed the shop on to other stewards after 5 years as she was then 75 and had decided to go on a long over-due overseas extended holiday to see friends and family. She had built a strong foundation and remarks that the late Alan Glass who opened the Knysna shop had been her mentor. Her good friend Clare Wordsworth who was a physiotherapist had been a volunteer care-giver for Sedgefield Hospice at that time. Wynne was known as “Mrs Hospice" among the coloured and black community of Sedgefield who frequented the shop!

For many years, Wynne says, Montecello treated the Hospice helpers to a wonderful annual lunch, free of charge. She remains grateful to many businesses and individuals who contributed generously to the Hospice cause enabling it to be such a success story in Sedgefield.

Wynne was 81 years old when she passed away on 3 October 2011 after a short illness. She was a well-loved member of the Sedgefield community, a caring and loving friend to many people. She will be sorely missed.

Links to Related Sites

Knysna - Sedgefield Hospice

We care for our community by providing free holistic home based care to patients and their families in our wider Knysna Sedgefield area. This involves taking care of the physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs of our patients and their families. We also train and mentor our staff, volunteers and health care professionals in the public and private sector.....

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