My Story

What started out for me as a Private Nurse practitioner in 2002 and visiting clients in their homes to attend to wounds and Urology care, blossomed into Durban North Nursing, my company, and my passion.

 

Doing home visits, I realized the immense need for those to have health assistance in the home. I distinctly remember the day that could I not bear to leave an elderly patient who had suffered a stroke, helpless and alone.  I managed to find her two lovely trained caregivers, which was a huge success. Her recovery with hands on loving care, was so inspirational to me and I wanted more.

 

The next thing I knew, I was hiring a space at the local library hall, where I trained a further 10 passionate unemployed ladies with huge caring potential. Before the end of the month, we had trained, security screened and provided employment to all these excited new caregivers. The training, however, was still too basic, and we realized the need for our staff to have a more formalized qualification. Our training company Vital Skills was born, and my husband and I then started providing accredited homebased care and First Aid training programs. We have since, provided training to well over 3000 people. 

 

During this time, our Home care company developed, and Vital Care emerged, later changing to Durban North Nursing. 

The days were short, and it became impossible to continue with both training and running a busy home care business and be a Mum myself. We made the difficult decision to sell Vital Skills to Excellerate Property Services in 2015.

 

This enabled me to give my full attention to 24/7 care, providing a hands-on service to patients in the Berea, Durban North, La Lucia, Umhlanga Rocks and Mount Edgecombe areas. Over the years, we have been well supported and referred by local specialists and Doctors and have a large proportion of clients abroad, who put their elderly loved ones in South Africa, in our hands.

 

Each day I wake up ready to serve, hoping to be the light, in at least one person’s window, to help them feel loved, cared for and less alone. I live to make a difference, for me that is all that really matters. 

 

- Wendy Mac Nicol

 

 

 

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