#HospiceVisits kicks off this year with the focus for the next two months on the Gauteng province. The Communications team managed to touch on 11 hospices during their time in the province, gathering invaluable stories of success around the practise of hospice and palliative care from the various hospices.

This week we focus on Stepping Stone Hospice.

We had the privilege of chatting to Veronika Dos Santos who has been a patient of Stepping Stone Hospice and on the day that this interview was being conducted, she was actually spending her last day at the hospice being discharged later that day, which was a massive achievement for her and the hospice. She could finally go home and spend time with her loved ones.

Veronika suffers from a unique lung disease that only allows her lungs to perform at 35% of its capacity relating in only 10% oxygen diffusion. This affects her overall breathing and functionality extremely difficult.

She has been in and out of hospital and was extremely dissatisfied by the service provided to her. When she got in touch with stepping stone hospice it was the complete opposite. The video below explains beautifully the impact that hospice made in her life.