Introduction:

1. What is your name?
Linky Beukes

2. Which hospice do you work for?
Hospice Wits

3. What do you do there?
Registered Nurse

4. How long have you been there?
2 years

In-depth:

1. Why did you decide to focus on palliative care?
There is a need in the community, people (patients) having symptoms e.g.: pain that can be under control when well-managed, people don’t always understand the term palliative care, and I decided to come to hospice.

2. What gives you the greatest fulfilment?
When we are working as a team, everybody that is caring for the patients from homecare wight through to IPU

3. What do you find the most challenging?
Families that are not accepting their loved one’s condition and families that are in denial.

4. What do you think people find the most challenging about a life-threatening diagnosis?
The treatment e.g.: chemotherapy and the various symptoms like pain, constipation and the unknown.

5. What do you think that you personally bring to your job that reflects who you are as a person?
I am flexible in all situations.

6. How do you take care of your own health and balance?
I keep myself busy with hard work, so that my mind can shift into the positive, so that I can focus on other patients and my work.

7. What is your advice to anyone else wishing to join your profession?
Your heart must be in the right place. You must have compassion and patience and love what you are doing. It has to be pleasurable to wake up in the morning.

8. What is your advice to anyone given a life-threatening diagnosis?
Focus on your treatment, get all your affairs in order and speak to your loved ones about your fears, anxieties, and positive things.

9. What is your advice to the loved ones of anyone who is given a life-threatening diagnosis?
Listen to your loved one. Be patient and compassionate. Understand what they are saying and support them emotionally.

10. How do your loved ones feel about the work that you do?
I do not have any loved ones, that is why I keep myself busy.

11. What do you like the most about the hospice that you work with?
The atmosphere, the home away from home feeling, the staff, the patients.

12. Do you have a “motto” that you tend to live by that you would like to share?
Take every day as it comes.