Sea Harvest's Kids for Kids campaign alleviates waiting list at children's hospital

Sea Harvest CFO John Paul de Freitas

Sea Harvest CFO John Paul de Freitas said, "By donating money from the sales of these products to the Children's Hospital Trust, kids are literally helping other kids."

This year, Sea Harvest has pledged R300,000. Since 2010, the commercial fishing company has donated more than R1 million to the Trust for various projects at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, including a surgical skills training centre, a general medical ward, a new medical imaging complex and a childsafe research and educational centre.

A weekend waiting list initiative

De Freitas said this year's funds would go towards funding a weekend waiting list initiative at the hospital, where the long waiting list for non-critical surgeries is tackled on Saturdays.

Children's Hospital Trust's CEO Louise Driver, said: "We are delighted to once again be the beneficiary of such a worthy campaign. Thanks to donors, like Sea Harvest, we are able to not only fund much-needed building projects, but also equipment needs, research, training and in this case, actual surgeries. This enables us to maintain the hospital's reputable status as a state-of-the-art child health institution that impacts on the healthcare of children in Africa and globally."

According to Dr Anita Parbhoo, Medical Manager at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, the hospital's excellent national and international reputation has resulted in an enormous demand for the hospital's services and a long surgical waiting list. "This often leads to non-critical procedures, such as Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) and General Paediatric Surgery cases being postponed to make place for intricate, lifesaving operations that must take preference," she said.

"Though not life threatening, these non-emergency surgeries are life changing for the young patients involved, as well as for their families," said Dr Parbhoo. "As elective anaesthetic surgeries are not usually conducted over weekends, this extra day of surgery alleviates many non-critical cases from the waiting list. This allows those patients to get on with their lives and continue to develop normally, and also creates scope at the hospital for more flexibility in the theatre during the week. This year we are also doing MRI scan lists where the patient needs to be sedated under general anaesthesia."

The Red Cross Children's Hospital has been running this annual surgical initiative since 2011, with 220 surgeries performed over that time. Ninety seven surgeries are scheduled for 2014 of which Sea Harvest is funding approximately 40 procedures.

De Freitas said: "Sea Harvest is honoured to be able to assist with these essential projects at the Red Cross Children's Hospital. At Sea Harvest we want to support this world-class hospital and their staff who work tirelessly to help ill and injured children from all over Africa. We are proud to be associated with this incredible institution."

For more information, visit or www.childrenshospitaltrust.org.za.