​There are two types of Social Grants that people can apply for:

• One Disability Grant (1,070,648 beneficiaries). R1,510 per month for people who are unable to work because of disability. Recipients must be between 18 and 59, submit a medical assessment or report no older than three months, and may not receive another social grant.

• Two Care Dependency Grant (146,870 beneficiaries). R1,600 per month to the main caregiver of a child with a permanent, severe disability. The applicant must submit a medical assessment report on the child’s behalf and earn less than R192,200 (if single) or R384,000 (combined income if married) per year.

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We cannot envisage how a caretaker can look after a bedridden patient when they must rely on the Government’s Care Dependency Grant of R1,600 per month.

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The Foundation forecast to support approximately 12 500 bedridden patients per month. Many patients (especially Cancer patients) will unfortunately receive financial support for a short period (average, 4 months). Their caretakers might have resigned or took long-term unpaid leave to look after them.

 

We support patients in need of long-term frail care. Most of our caretakers cannot apply for government support due to Salary brackets. We help caretakers (people that can qualify) to register for the Government’s Care Dependency and Disability Grants when possible.

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We inform caretakers that we will distribute funds monthly amongst patients who were visited by the social worker or volunteers who help us in their area. We do a financial assessment of the shortfalls on budgets and we will distribute the available funds proportionally amongst all the caretakers whose applications have been approved.

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Our focus is to implement 3 funding structures to assist caretakers:

1. Financial support from family members

2. Government’s Care Dependency & Disability Grant

3. Homecare financial support from the private sector

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Family members

It is a fact that family members often get into arguments when one person is diagnosed with a disease such as Multiple Sclerosis (Motor neuron disease). There are frequently family members that choose to distance themselves from the patients and the burden to support the patient then falls on one family member. (We publish this content on the website to explain to Homecare friends how relationships between families are demolished as a result of diseases. We worked on this project for years while we developed software to earn income for patients. We know of many families that are influenced by diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, MDS, etc.)   

The family member “caretaker” in financial need will in future approach the Homecare Foundation for financial support.

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Our first task is to be an intermediary between the family members and to help them find a solution to support their patient. A better solution to such problems can often be found when a third "independent party" gets involved.

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The applicant must provide a list of immediate family members and also what financial support the caretaker receives from the other family members. It often happens that family members choose to distance themselves totally from the patient and it is usually a scenario where the “caring natured” brother or sister ends up with care-taking and the financial burden.

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Admin teams that partner with us will contact the brothers and sisters and explain that we were approached to help fund shortfalls. It may be possible to negotiate with the brothers and sisters to donate, for example, R200 each.

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We found that when a person is diagnosed with a disease such as Multiple Sclerosis that some family members rather choose to distance themselves as they know that the brother/sister with Multiple Sclerosis will need frail care support for years. We know of MS patients that lived 13 years with full frail care support. This results in a long-term financial and emotional burden on the caretaker.

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In scenarios where people are diagnosed with for example Cancer, the family members tend to support one another better… It is as if the family members know that the burden will be for a short period.

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The fact that an outside person contacts the brothers and sisters will help the applicant. We can explain to them that we have to compile a full report as part of our application procedures. It is explained that we assist the one brother/sister with sourcing funding from the private sector and also from Government.

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In most scenarios, the applicant will not talk to brothers and sisters that decided not to help. They are often so disappointed and cross that they cannot or just do not want to ask for financial support, even if the amount is only R200. The Homecare Foundation and its partners can act as intermediary and we can also arrange that professional people meet with the family members to provide counselling. The counselling process may help the family to reunite. We might in certain scenarios raise R5 000 from other family members, and arrange the Government’s contributions as well. The funds that we raise amongst family members will be utilized to purchase groceries from our Food partners.

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The first focus point is most important. We have a reason to communicate with all the immediate family members and we can get professional people to save families that are destroyed by a disease!

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Our team will also reveal the actual financial needs of all the bedridden patients we support to family members and friends. We use web-based reports to explain the total shortfall on budgets, the amount paid to caretakers and the number of caretakers that did not received payment because we did not receive confirmation from the social workers or volunteers that the patient is still in need of financial support.

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We forecast to donate on average R4,200 towards a bedridden patient (If we support 12 500 patients). It is a reasonable contribution and will make a huge difference. We will ask family and friends to re-evaluate their own insurance just to prevent them for becoming in financial need. We will contact the nearest financial advisor to provide support if the family member/friend do not have a relationship with a broker. We set-up a national support network for this task. Family members often reside in other provinces and towns and we will contact all the family members.

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Government’s Care Dependency & Disability Grant

There are numerous people diagnosed with serious diseases that are not registered to receive a grant.

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The first thing the patient do is to deny that he/she is ill… They believe they will overcome the inevitable.

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The caretaker often finds it difficult to explain to the patient that he/she struggles to support the patient financially. They know that to apply for the Disability Grant, they need to provide medical reports and they need the patient to help with the application process.

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Often, the caretaker doesn’t want to hurt the brother/sister and they choose to go without financial support from Government.    

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Our task is to get professionals to visit the caretaker and patient and explain to the patient that we have to involve as many people as possible, even Government, to support the caretaker until the patient has healed and is able to go back to work (We will obviously try to keep the patient positive about his/her circumstances).

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There are also parents who often do not know about the Government’s Care Dependency grant. We work through every application to establish if it is possible to register the caretakers for Government support.

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We explain to the caretakers that the Homecare Foundation can only pay out funds from the private sector after we confirmed that Government (when possible) also helps the caretaker. We provide top-up support.

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The first 2 focus points will in most cases already help the caretaker enormously.   

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Private sector contributions

The Homecare Foundation supports businesses in order to earn income for patients. 

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The private sector also includes the public that can donate to help caretakers. The public will be reached via media campaigns. We need to emphasise the fact that a small contribution, from many people will make a huge difference to the caretakers.

 

The Homecare Foundation commits to distribute available funds to caretakers where the confirmations were received that the patients are still in need of support.

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We will publish the fund distributions nationally and per area on the website. We will also publish the number of people that didn’t receive donations when we couldn’t confirm their status

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We hope to distribute on average R4,200 per month towards caretakers. It will only be people that are in desperate need (full frail care) that will receive funding.

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There are caretakers that will, after their patients has passed on, return to work. We hope that a percentage of these people will after a few months donate funds back to the Foundation for the Foundation to provide support to other caretakers caught in the same predicament.

 

We build relationships with caretakers. We explain to them that the support they receive from the Foundation is donations (not loans). They are not legally bound to repay the Foundation. We however ask caretakers that in future can donate towards our cause to support us when they are back into a position where their financial difficulties have been resolved. This will help the Foundation to provide better support to a larger number of people.