Hospital pledges ongoing support

16-Nov-2009

The Aurora Hospital in Port Elizabeth has pledged to help one Fund recipient every year after a assisting injured player Sikhosonke Mani with his rehabilitation in 2009.

Mani, 22, a lock from the Gladiators club, sustained an acute spinal cord injury in a match played in PE on 4 April. He was treated initially at Livingstone Hospital, but a planned move to the Western Cape Rehab Centre in Lentegeur, Cape Town, fell through due to a lack of beds.

This is where Aurora’s rehab specialist Dr Rob Campbell stepped in: Sikhosonke was accomodated and assisted for a period of 17 weeks under the watchful eye of outpatient co-ordinator Danie Jansen, and showed good progress before returning home to his family, who live just outside PE.

The project was so successful that Aurora has now offered to help one injured player every year who is unable to get the rehabilitation that he needs following a rugby related acute spinal cord injury.

“Mr Mani sustained fractures of C4 & C5 and when he arrived here he was fully dependent in all aspects of mobility and self-care,” says Jansen. “By the end of May he had started mobilising in a wheelchair and was sitting up for 45 minutes at a time.”

By the end of June, Sikhosonke had made good progress, and was sitting up for up to four hours at a time. “We continued to work at strengthening of the movement in his arms and improving his general endurance,” says Jansen. “By the end of July his upper limbs were slowing getting stronger.”

Sikhosonke was provided with a motorised wheelchair, and has since returned to his family. “In the long term, it would be good for him to be permanently placed in a home care facility,” says Jansen. “He has a dream to complete his matric and to study further, and with his determination we feel strong that it is a dream that can be made real.”

“I was very happy with the treatment I got there,” says Sikhosonke. I’m at home now but it’s nice to be here and I’m really enjoying it. The Fund have given me a motorised wheelchair and now I can get everywhere I need to go.

Sikhosonke, who lives with his grandmother and two brothers, says he would like to further his education in 2010. “My main goal next year is to do my matric,” he says. “I’m very motivated to study and hopefully I can then study after that.”

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