Starlight Oasis of Hope Hospice - The Kingdom of Lesotho’s first dedicated palliative care hospice

On August 18, Starlight Oasis of Hope Hospice (SOHH) held a launch to mark a new phase in the provision of palliative care: extend training and services, and begin fundraising to build what will be the Kingdom of Lesotho’s first dedicated palliative care hospice, and a daycare center. The event was attended by the SOHH patron the Queen of Lesotho—Her Majesty ‘Masenate Mohato Seeiso, government officials, several corporate guests and cancer survivors.

Statistics

The 2017 Atlas of Palliative Care in Africa reported that Lesotho had no hospice care, no National Health funding for palliative care, no home-based palliative care, and no national palliative care plan.

I witnessed many patients, family members, and friends who are living—or who have died—in much pain and distress. I realized that it didn’t need to be that way.

I began Starlight Palliative Care Services in 2017 as a consultancy, to advocate for palliative care and train health professionals in end-of-life care and pain management, as they lacked confidence in providing such care and feared using strong opiates.

By 2020, we naturally progressed to become Starlight Oasis of Hope Hospice, providing training, advice, and direct care. Raising public awareness was a key part of our advocacy. It resulted in a section on palliative care in Lesotho’s 2021 noncommunicable diseases plan.

With this launch, including a Just Giving campaign, we hope to have put a seed in the hearts and minds of potential sponsors, including our corporate guests, to help us continue to build our services—literally!

Future plans are solidifying

Training: Thanks to reaching out to a team from Wales, we arranged for palliative care training as part of the local Family Medicine Specialty Training Programme. A team from Palliative Care Works will provide training to other frontline health and social care workers in early 2023. Further sessions are planned to train champions to provide ongoing training and support.
Clinician & patient support: A Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Health is to set up a palliative care team in Maseru (the capital) to support clinicians in hospital and, later, provide advice to primary care providers as well as homecare services for patients.
Service sites: Thanks to the generosity of a local chief of Letsatseng Berea, SOHH has acquired a site and approval to build a daycare centre and, in time, a hospice facility for both inpatient and outpatient care. In return SOHH has funded a project to supply water to the local village. The Ministry of Defence pledged to provide a workforce to build the hospice, while the Ministry of Water Affairs pledged to install systems to equip the facility with running water. We have a team of Architects under the leadership of Mr Lineo Lerotholi-Mosouenyane who have donated their time and skills to design the hospice facility, daycare centre and training centre for us.

Our immediate need is 4×4 vehicles to enable our outreach teams to deliver home care services. We need to deliver palliative care as soon as yesterday to help end unnecessary suffering.

“I am currently working in the United Kingdom while raising funds , I am also pursuing MSc qualifications in palliative care. Her Majesty Queen ‘Masenate Mohato Seeiso made an impassioned plea to recognize the urgent need for palliative care to relieve unnecessary suffering by people in Lesotho.

Our approach is to be ambitious but realistic; bold but sensitive. We need to stress that palliative care is not necessarily a specialist area; all health practitioners should have basic palliative care skills; much care can be delivered at home and effective palliative care can ease the psychological, physical, social, spiritual and, just as importantly, the economic burden on families.

For more information, contact info@sohhospice.org.ls. SOHH is in the fundraising phase and options are found on our website