Our Member Organizations
Botswana
Pabalelong Hospice |
St Conrad’s Clinic |
St Joseph’s Mission Clinic |
Eastern Cape
Aliwal Diocese Welfare & Development Committee |
Assumption Nutrition Centre |
Camdeboo Hospice |
Care Ministry |
Caring Hands HBC |
Caritas Queenstown |
Eluthandweni Childrens’ Centre |
Emadlelweni Special Day Care Centre |
Enkuthazweni Centre for Disability |
Ezibeleni Community Home Based Care |
Good Samaritan HBC and Hospice |
Good Shepherd Hospice |
House of Hope |
Ikhwezi Mphatlalatsane Com Org |
Ingubo Childrens’Haven (non-catholic) |
Jabez Aids Healing Centre |
Lesedi Hospice and Outreach |
Masabelane Centre |
Missionvale Care Centre |
Port Alfred White Door Centre of Hope |
Port Elizabeth Diocese AIDS Committee |
Sithunyiwe HBC |
Sizamulwazi HBC |
Sizanani HBC |
Sophumelela Home Base Care |
St Martin De Porres |
St Mary’s Development Care Centre |
St Michaels Old Aged Home |
Umthathi Training Project |
Vukani Centre HBC |
Eswatini
Caritas eSwatini |
Faith Community Nursing |
Florence Mission Clinic |
Good Shepherd Hospital |
Good Shepherd College |
Hope House Hospice |
Maloyi Clinic |
Our Lady of Sorrows Clinic |
St Juliana’s Clinic,Mahlabane |
St Mary’s Clinic |
St Theresa’s Clinic, Manzini |
Free State
Batho Ba Lerato |
Bethlehem Basic Training Project |
Boitumelo Disability Centre |
Caritas – Diocese of Kroonstad Development Agency |
Caritas Bethlehem |
Catholic Community Services |
Catholic Nurses Guild |
Chief Phosholi II Multi Purpose Centre |
Friedrich Bussereau Home for the Disabled |
Ikemeleng Multipurpose Centre |
Lesedi Centre of Hope |
Mmabahloki Clara Home |
Molisa ea Molemo Place of Safety |
Rebolokehile |
Sekwele Centre for Social Reflection |
Siyathokoza Health Care Centre |
Siyathokoza OVC Centre |
St Catherine Educare Centre |
Thusanang Hospice and Palliative Care |
Gauteng
Afra 1 Community Development |
Afra 2 Community Development |
Fr Michael D’Annucci Centre |
Holy Cross Home |
Inkanyezi HIV/AIDS Organisation |
Kopano Lerato |
Lehlohonolo Community Welfare |
Leratong Hospice |
Lindanisizwe HBC/Community Development Project |
Lufuno Education for Life |
Mountainview Health Care Centre |
Nazareth Care JHB |
Nazareth House, Pretoria |
Pholong Clinic |
Phumula Old Age Home |
Pretoria Archdiocese Health & Welfare Assoc |
SACBC AIDS Office |
Siphesihle Home Based Care |
Sisters of Charity Hospice |
St Francis Care Centre |
St John the Baptist Clinic |
St Joseph’s Care & Support Trust |
TLC Children’s Home (The Love of Christ Ministries) |
KwaZulu Natal
Amakhasi Clinic |
Asiphile e St James |
Asiphile e Uganda HBC |
Assisi Shelter for Children |
Benedictine District Nursing (Tswasana Clinic) |
Blessed Gerard’s Care Centre |
Caritas Amakhasi |
Caritas Durban |
Catholic Nurses Guild of Emmanuel |
Denis Hurley Centre |
Duduza Care Centre & Hospice |
Durban Parish Nurse Programme |
Eshowe Diocese Development Department |
Holy Cross Clinic and Hospice |
Ikhaya Community Development |
Intathakusa Old Age Home |
iThembalethu Outreach Project |
Kwa Kristo Umsindisi HIV/AIDS + Poverty Alleviation |
Lulisandla Social Outreach Project |
Masithuthukisane Community Organisation |
Matikwe Clinic |
Nazareth House, Durban,KZN |
Ntuzuma AIDS Resource Centre |
Phupholami Health Care Centre t/a Uthando Child Care Development |
eSbongiututhuko Creche |
Sicelimpilo Project |
Siyabathanda St Philomena CBO |
Siyathandwa Community Development Project |
Sizanani Outreach Programme |
St Antonine Home for the Aged |
St Clement’s HBC Project |
St Elizabeth’s Feeding Project |
Sukumawenze Place of Care |
Thandukuphila AIDS Project |
The Right to Live Campaign |
Umusa WoMsinga |
Umzimkhulu Diocese HCW Association |
Vianney Child and Youth Care Center |
Vuhlngqondo Creche |
Yakhumndeni AIDS Project |
Zimisele HIV and AIDS Care |
Limpopo
Bela Bela HIV/AIDS Prevention Group |
Fanang Diatla Health Care |
Good Shepherd AIDS Response |
Holy Family Care Centre |
Kurisanani Diocese of Tzaneen CARITAS |
Ngwana Swara Atla Saka |
OLSH Outreach |
Schoonoord Victim Support Centre |
St Joseph Children of Charisma |
Mpumalanga
Akanani HBC |
Asiphilenikahle HBC |
Bonisuthando Creche |
Dingleydale HBC |
Dwarsloop Catholic Care Centre |
Ekuthuleni Project |
Entuthukweni Creche |
Holy Trinity OVC |
Ithemba Nenjabulo |
Justicia Orphanage Centre |
Lindokuhle Creche |
Mthimba HBC |
Mzamomuhle HBC |
Numbi HBC |
Phaphamani HBC |
Philisa HBC |
Sakhasive Community Centre |
Shalom Old Age In Action Centre |
Silwanendlala OVC |
Sisitasive HBC |
Sizanani HBC |
St Anthony’s Clinic |
St Benedict’s Home |
St John’s Care Centre |
Success HBC |
The Light of Life HBC |
Thulamahashe HBC |
Tiyimiseleni HBC |
Ukukhanya Kwezwe HBC |
Vezokuhle HBC |
Zimiseleni HBC |
North West Province
Aredireng Care Givers |
Good Shepherd Madidi |
Ha Ma Mohau Children’s home |
Lesang Catholic Pre-School |
Mamosa Home Based Care |
Mofumahadi wa Tshepo Care |
Relebogile Care + Support Group |
Rorisang Men & Youth Development Services |
Tapologo HIV/AIDS Programme |
Tsibogang Christian Action Group |
Northern Cape
Francis Shannon Hospice |
Kgomotsego Old Age Home |
Nightingale Hospice |
Western Cape
Caring Network |
St Luke’s Hospice |
Find out more about our Members
The Church’s contribution to health care in South Africa has been enormous. In many parts of South Africa, the Catholic and other churches were the first to build hospitals and clinics and to provide modern medical care. Often that service was heroic, because of the difficulties of the environments in which these missionaries served, or because they cared for people in the front lines of violent conflict. Many times they defied the racial discrimination that was a norm in the region long even before the policy of apartheid was imposed.
In the late nineteenth century, missionaries fanned out over the subcontinent preaching the gospel to the local peoples. They built churches, schools and hospitals and clinics. Missionaries were often the first to set up hospitals long before anyone else where successive white rulers did not bother to do so. By 1950, there were 73 Catholic hospitals in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland (now eSwatini) and Lesotho. Ten per cent of all the mission hospitals in the world were located in Southern Africa at that time. They provided not only medical services, often at nominal fees, but also trained African nurses. Over 500 African nurses were in training at several nursing colleges established by the church in 1951.
As a result, for much of the 20th century, the vast majority of South Africans received health care not from the government, but from Catholic mission hospitals—until the apartheid regime expropriated almost all of them in the 1970s. In many areas, the Catholic health mission continued with increasingly lay-run clinics.
In the 1990s, the appearance of HIV/AIDS changed the whole landscape. Suddenly the nation was faced with the most important health crisis in its history. The new government struggled to face it and to handle it and was beset by denialism and obfuscation.
Catholic clinics became again the centres of new action, and now the activity spread also into Catholic parishes, as caregivers, mostly women but also including some men, took up the challenge of caring for the sick and the orphans. Home based care became the tool with which the church tackled the problem, and together with many of the churches and with many civic groups, the Catholic church was in the forefront of the fight against AIDS.
Catholic Health Care in Southern Africa has changed in several ways over the past few decades. One trend is clear and documented: the inexorable decline of formal health care facilities controlled by Catholic institutions in the form of hospitals and clinics. These have either been taken over by the government or have been closed due to lack of funds. Patients can neither seek nor secure care in a Catholic health facility anymore. Another trend is the aging of religious health care providers, especially those whose membership is predominantly European. As members of such orders grow older and retire, the health care institutions they managed lose previously assured sources of funding and gradually reduce the scope of work before they finally close. No longer do any Catholic doctors serve institutions within the CATHCA network, with the exception of a single hospital in eSwatini. Even the number of nurses is slowly but surely dwindling. These trends started many years ago and will continue because of the reality of reducing numbers of Catholics who take up religious vocations and engage in health care.
Today, CATHCA is mostly made up of members belonging to small community-based organizations (CBOs) who provide community-based services which start and stop depending on the availability of funding. Few, if any, have any independent sources of funding. Almost all are dependent on grants from government or from national and international donors in order to function. They are skilled in providing specific services to community members which no one else provides such as home-based care and HIV counselling and adherence support. For this reason, they form the backbone of community-based health care services along with trained government community health workers. Without these cadres of grassroots workers, mortality and morbidity in South Africa would soar. Their services are increasingly appreciated and acknowledged by government, especially because access to formal health care is still quite low for the poor and marginalized.
CATHCA’s support is generally well appreciated by its members. Its periodic provincial and national conferences are appreciated by all as is the training it has provided in areas such as home-based care, Maternal and Child Health, HIV, TB and pastoral care. Much of this was made possible by grants from Catholic donors. Unfortunately, their support is slowly dwindling with some moving away from supporting health care and some away from supporting funding to South Africa which is considered better-off than other countries needing aid. This is a major risk to CATHCA since it has been reliant on funding from such Catholic donors since it was founded. Without assured funding streams, services such as capacity building for a Catholic health care network and pastoral care for health care workers, including psycho-social support, will be under threat.
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