At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, from left, are Groote Schuur Hospital CEO Dr Shaheem de Vries, South African Tissue Bank Association president Sandra Venter, Professor Lionel Green-Thompson, Dr Juanita Arendse, Bone SA chairperson Professor Petro Terblanche and Professor David Thompson.
Groote Schuur Hospital has launched a centre to help families face the grief of losing a love one.
Dr David Thomson, a consultant surgeon at the hospital’s transplant unit, said the facility offered somewhere private where bereaved families could receive counselling and advice and where the option of donating a love one’s organs could be explored.
"We have found that donation is something that offers solace to families long down the line from their tragedy and grief. Besides providing bereavement support and counselling, this centre can link multiple role players in these extremely difficult end-of-life situations,” he said.
Professor Petro Terblanche, from Bone SA, a non-profit company that helps to match donors and recipients for bone transplants, said: “Giving consent for the donation of organs and tissue after the death of a dear loved one is one of the most selfless acts of love and kindness we can imagine. Through donation, the family’s decision affects not only multiple lives positively, but it also provides them with some comfort in the most difficult of circumstances.”