Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
01 November 2021 | Story André Damons
Mother Lodger Unit revamp MACAH
These students volunteered to help renovate the Mother Lodger Unit at Universitas Academic Hospital.

The Mother and Child Academic Hospital (MACAH) Foundation embarked on a community-based project to do some much-needed renovation and upgrades at the Mother Lodger Unit at Universitas Academic Hospital. Mothers often stay at the unit while their babies are required to remain in hospital for an extended period of time.

The first phase of the project, which took place earlier in October 2021, was a major success with several volunteers made up of MBChB, Occupational Therapists, Physios and Psychology Honours students, spending their Saturday morning painting, cleaning and gardening at the Mother Lodger Unit.

According to project leader Lüther van Zyl, they painted several walls with paint provided by Dulux, and planted vegetables with soil and seedlings provided by Greenside Nursery. “The mothers staying at the unit will soon harvest fresh vegetables and now have the chore of looking after their fresh garden. The next phase will involve further painting of the unit as well as the implementation of informative paintings/graphics which will emphasise the importance of the first 1 000 days of life,” says Van Zyl.

Providing an uplifting environment for mothers

The project coordinator for the MACAH Foundation, Tertia de Bruin, says this was the first Mother Lodger Unit Project undertaken by the MACAH Foundation. It is not an annual project but there will still be several more upgrades and maintenance of the unit until the Mother and Child Academic Hospital is built.    

“The Mother Lodger Unit houses mothers whose babies are in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Because of the importance of the mother-baby dyad, the MACAH Foundation set out to support the mothers by creating a beautiful and positive space for them to live in so they can focus on being a mother and establishing the mother-baby dyad,” says De Bruin.

The aim of the project is to renovate the unit to provide an uplifting environment for these mothers where they can thrive and focus on the recovery of their babies while developing skills and forming supportive relationships with other mothers.

This environment will create an opportunity for these mothers to experience autonomy in maintaining a vegetable garden whilst ensuring food resources. Their environment and stay at the unit should be uplifting and positive and set the tone for the rest of their journey as mothers, further promoting the healthy development of their child long after they have left the unit.

The bond between mother and baby

According to Prof André Venter, Founder Director of MACAH Foundation and Emeritus Professor in Paediatric and Child Health at the University of the Free State (UFS), the bond between a mother and baby can never be replicated by any other person. The baby is totally dependent on the mother and the mother is also dependent on the baby to make her the best mother she can be.

“This bond will enable the baby to have relationships with other people that are meaningful and have depth. The baby feels comfortable and safe in the womb and then after birth they are suddenly in the outside world where there is noise and many dangers. In the time after birth, the mother is there to look after the baby and make the baby feel safe and soothed. The bond is about the baby experiencing that his/her nutritional and emotional needs are met. If this bond is not established, the baby gets anxious and secretes toxic stress hormones which can impair healthy development and growth.” 

News Archive

New building for Centre for Financial Planning Law
2012-04-23

 

A graphic illustration of the new building for the Centre for Financial Planning Law.
19 April 2012

 

During a recent tree planting ceremony, the Centre for Financial Planning Law in the Faculty of Law officially handed over the site for a new building for the centre. The building should be complete by the end of 2012.

The Centre for Financial Planning Law’s present premises has become too small for the needs of the centre, thus a decision was taken to build a new building.

The centre, which was opened in 2001 with three staff members, grew during the past 11 years to a centre with 13 permanent staff members. Some 1 300 students – 120 undergraduate and 1 200 postgraduate students in the Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law and the Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law respectively – are enrolled at the centre. Undergraduate students attend weekly contact sessions while the postgraduate students all study electronically through distance education.

According to Mr Rudolf Bitzer of Bitzer Design Studio, one of the two architecture firms involved in the development of the building, the new building was planned in order to to make provision for future extensions. “The opportunity for the centre to function independently was important from the beginning and facilities had to be positioned in such a way that the lecture hall and committee room could be hired out commercially when lectures were not being presented.

“The building consists of a large reception venue, which gives access to a lecture hall (which can be subdivided), a committee room, public amenities and a reception counter. The centre will present about ten lectures annually in its own building and the lecture hall can accommodate 80 students. Exams will also be written in the venue,” said Mr Bitzer.

The usable inside area of the building totals 827 square metres.

The staff function in their own section of the building, with the offices arranged around a courtyard. Security access makes it a secure environment. In addition, staff have access to a staff room with a service hatch to the reception room, reception counter, personal assistant’s office, nine individual offices and a large open plan office, a storeroom, a cleaners’ room and facilities for staff.

“With the design, an attempt was made to make the building stand comfortably in the landscape without disappearing into the natural landscape. It is an unpretentious building, which seeks to provide well articulated architecture,” said Mr Bitzer.

The architecture firms involved are Bitzer Design Studio and Roodt Architects.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept