Workshop Presenters
Dr Julia Ambler
Dr Julia Ambler has been working in paediatric palliative care for the last 20 years, first in Oxford, UK, where she completed her diploma and in Durban since 2009.
She co-founded Umduduzi – Hospice Care for Children in 2013. She is currently the only doctor that is paid by the government for providing paediatric palliative care in South Africa, working 10 hours a week at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital. She is a sessional lecturer in the Departments of Paediatrics and Family Medicine, Nelson Mandela Medical School, University of KwaZulu-Natal and is the chairperson of The Association of Palliative Care Practitioners of South Africa (PALPRAC). As a communication skills expert, she is also a workshop facilitator for the Medical Protection Society.
Julia lives in Morningside with her partner, Tracey and two sons, Luke and Jack.
Tracy Rawlins
Dr Christian Ntizimira is the Executive Director of the African Center for Research on End-of-Life Care (ACREOL) and Faculty member of the Palliative Care Centre for Excellence in Research and Education (PalC), Singapore, and former City Manager, Kigali at the City Cancer Challenge Foundation. He is a Fulbright and Harvard Alumni from the Medical School, department of Global Health and Social Medicine. He is a physician trained in Rwanda at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences (CMHS), University of Rwanda. He is the Executive Secretary a.i of Rwanda Palliative Care & Hospice Organisation (RPCHO), a non-profit organization that advocates for access to pain control and palliative care in primary care. A Palliative Care Expert and Educator, Dr. Ntizimira pioneered the integration of end-of-life care into health services rendered to Rwandan patients with chronic illnesses in acute care and community settings. Through his programme, more than 1500 health care providers and community health workers have learned the risk factors of cancer & the concept of palliative care leading to a five-fold increase in the prescription of morphine, an essential pain medication. Dr. Ntizimira was a Researcher collaborator at Harvard Global Equity Initiative - Lancet Commission on Global Access to Pain Control and Palliative Care (GAPPCP).
Hanneke Lubbe
Sr Joan Marston qualified with a degree in Nursing, Sociology and Social Anthropology from the University of Kwazulu-Natal and has been working in palliative care since 1989 at a local, national, and international level. With a special interest in paediatric palliative care (PPC) Joan first established Sunflower Children’s Hospice in Bloemfontein in 1998, before setting up a South African national paediatric palliative care (PPC) development programme within HPCA (now APCC), and then co-founding the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) in 2005, of which she was the first Chair and CEO. Joan has a deep interest in spirituality, culture and spiritual care of children.
Concerned about the lack of palliative care in humanitarian settings she then co-founded PallCHASE – Palliative Care in Humanitarian Aid Situations and Emergencies - and is on the Executive Committee leading on Advocacy. As the Vice-President of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation Global Joan co-facilitates the EKRF South-Asian Fellowship programme. Joan teaches across a number of countries; and is an Honorary Consultant to the Center of Palliative Medicine at the Kharkiv National Medical University in Ukraine.
She is a Global Ambassador for the ICPCN; on the faculty of a number of international educational programmes; and still involved with Sunflower Children's Hospice.
Dr Welly den Hollander
Dr Michelle Meiring is a Palliative Care Paediatrician who has worked in this field for 20 years. She is the founder and CEO of Paedspal and works 20 hours a week for the organisation. Michelle’s other job is to convene the Post-Graduate Diploma in Paediatric Palliative Care at the University of Cape Town. She is an accomplished speaker and has presented at several local and international conferences.
She was also one of four editors of the latest edition of the Oxford Textbook on Palliative Care for Children. A long-standing child health and palliative care advocate since her “Paeds HIV-days”, Michelle is the immediate past chair and sits on the board of the national network for Children’s Palliative care known as PatchSA and has been involved at provincial and national levels in policy making in palliative care in South Africa.
Dr Geoff Howes
Dr Geoff Howes first qualified with his medical degree from UCT. He further obtained a diploma in emergency medicine from the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. He went on to acquire a post graduate certificate in palliative medicine and his post graduate diploma in palliative medicine from UCT. In 2024, Geoff completed a Master of Science with distinction with the University of Glasgow, focusing on vulnerable communities’ palliative care needs provision through healthcare worker education with a particular focus on South African queer communities at the end of life.
Aside from his general practice, Geoff is involved in local palliative care research and is actively involved in medical teaching through the University of the Cape Town and the American College of Surgeons. He is a board member of The Association of Palliative Care Practitioners of South Africa and a member of the executive committee of The Southern African Sexual Health Association.
Dr Barbara Matthews
Dr Barbara Matthews has lived and worked in the rural Eastern Cape since qualifying with her medical degree from UCT. Initially working in GP practice, she completed her MPhil in 2010 while working in a public private partnership inpatient palliative care unit at a secondary level hospital. Since leaving the hospital inpatient service she has worked for an Eastern Cape based hospice servicing a large geographical area and has been in private palliative care practice since 2022. Her practice includes in-person IDT patient care and hybrid remote IDTs from StillBay to East London
Outside of her palliative care work Barbara has a long association with an NGO working in early childhood development and literacy in vulnerable communities.
Nokulinda Mkhize
Nokulinda Mkhize is a sangoma and mother of 4. She has been practicing as isangoma since 2008 and is an authority in the realms of African cultures, indigenous spiritual knowledge and cosmologies. Combining her experience as isangoma, academic knowledge, creativity and media expertise she has shared and taught extensively on ancestral, cultural and spiritual practices in the modern professional, personal and community contexts. This experience and expertise led to the publishing of her first book Ancestory: Ancient lessons for Modern Life in 2022. She pioneered the ever-evolving niche for izangoma, including using digital resources to expand the scope of practice of ubungoma.
Tarryn Bell
Tarryn Bell is a Social Worker, adoptive and foster parent with a passion for Children’s Palliative Care. She obtained her Honours Degree in Social Work at Huguenot College through the University of South Africa in 2006. Since then, she has worked at various Child Protection organisations until moving to rural Zululand in 2011 to pursue a career in rural healthcare.
It was during her work as a hospital Social Worker in deep rural areas that she fell in love with Children’s Palliative Care and was exposed to the plight of orphaned and abandoned children with palliative needs in South Africa. Tarryn started her first non-profit company, Izandla ZeAfrika, in 2015 in the rural community of Mseleni, Northern KZN. She is the co-founder of Butterfly Palliative Home, the only in-patient children's hospice in KwaZulu-Natal.