The sudden, sad closure of Silwood Lodge

For decades, Silwood Lodge was a place of comfort, dignity, and care for Johannesburg’s elderly. But following a serious medical scare involving owner Trish Maynard, the much-loved facility closed its doors at the end of April, bringing an abrupt end to a chapter that has touched the lives of countless residents, families, and staff. 

The closure has been met with sadness by those who regarded Silwood Lodge as not just a care home, but an actual home. Under Maynard’s leadership, the facility built a reputation for its warm, personalised approach, making the news of its closure all the more difficult for the community it served for years. 

“The care that our parents received at Silwood Lodge was amazing; the staff were superb,” said one anonymous daughter of a resident. 

“The service of love was my great-grandmother’s, my grandmother’s, and mom’s,” said Maynard’s daughter Amanda Rogaly. “This level of love, passion, and commitment to the residents’ well-being ‒ while this may have been taken for granted at times ‒ unfortunately meant that my mom sacrificed many things in her personal life for her residents and families.” 

This dedication often took Maynard away from spending time with her family. Rogaly said that up until her mother had a medical emergency, her every waking hour was spent with her beloved residents, with the family’s blessing. 

“My mom has never begrudged her calling or the toll it has put on her family, as she’s indeed a true angel. We have always supported and been amazed by her work ethic and her ability to make things work perfectly,” she said. 

Before the closure, there had been many offers to buy Silwood Lodge, from buyers, developers, organisations, and even rabbis. That never came to fruition. “The individuals didn’t have the know-how to run the business or the care of the aged, and selling to such people or organisations would be unfair and a disservice to my mother’s legacy and the families and residents that had been a part of her life. Many offers fell through as interested parties didn’t realise that such a business isn’t a gold mine ‒ it’s a passion and a calling that my mom woke up and did every day,” said Rogaly. 

Over the years, Maynard had been struggling with her health, though she refused to slow down due to her commitment to her residents and staff. However, this year she was confronted by serious and sudden extreme health concerns and related complications, resulting in weeks in the intensive care unit. There was little idea of what the future would hold for her. 

This left Maynard’s family in a predicament that led to their decision to close Silwood Lodge to allow Maynard to focus on her health. 

“This has been my life for 45 years, seven days a week, 12 hours a day,” said Maynard. “But at the moment, the most important person is me. I’ve got to get well. This has been as hard for me as the residents”. 

Rogaly said that every Silwood Lodge resident was placed in another facility. 

“The most important thing is that my mother is alive and her legacy and reputation of care, compassion, and giving the elderly and her staff dignity will always remain.” 

Many children of residents at Silwood Lodge praised the staff and said one of the reasons they were so upset about the closure was because their parents would no longer be taken care of by these people whom their parents had grown to love. 

Rogaly agreed that the staff were what had made Silwood Lodge so special, and her mother knew this too. 

“Staff knew that at Silwood Lodge their personal well-being was taken care of, and even when closing Silwood Lodge, instead of turning staff away, from her hospital bed my mother committed to personally pay an excellent settlement package, as well as generously handing over furniture, appliances, and homeware from the home to set them on their way. An unnecessary thing to do, but my mother would always see everything and everyone right. From upskilling cleaners and cooks, staff received better skills, direction, and firm fairness than any large hospital could provide. That is how she built the reputation she did, and why residents’ families were reluctant to leave Silwood Lodge,” said Rogaly. 

For many residents and their families, the closure announcement was a shock as they were confronted by the fact that they had 90 days to move their relatives to other facilities. 

“We were all scrambling to find places for our parents. I think everyone found a place, but it was traumatic for them, as most of them have dementia or Alzheimer’s and relocating isn’t easy,” said one anonymous daughter. 

Another anonymous daughter, whose mother lived at Silwood Lodge for about six years, said that when the news came that it would be closing, the family was devastated because they loved the care that they received there. 

“Our biggest upset was the fact that it was so abrupt and there was no closure. I am probably like a lot of other children, the only daughter or the only child here. So it was quite a thing. We went to look at some other places. Luckily, we found something at Willowbrook, but my mother has deteriorated in the last month,” she said. 

“There was a lot of fear and anxiety. It was horrible for everybody there. They didn’t know what to expect,” said one resident’s daughter. 

Denise Wynick, whose husband lived at Silwood Lodge for seven years, said that when they heard of the closure she feared he would no longer get the same level of care. But ultimately, she respected the decision. 

“It was hard, but I can only praise Trish and her establishment and what she did,” she said. I did find somewhere else for him. I’m not as happy as I was at Silwood Lodge. I trusted Trish and her staff, and my life was very good while my husband was there.” 

“Most families were devastated at the news of my mom’s poor health and near-death situation, and understood, with the humanity that one should indeed have, that they now needed to feel a little bit of discomfort and sacrifice a little bit of the utopia that was provided to them at Silwood Lodge, to relocate their parents. Was this inconvenient so close to Pesach? Well, of course it was, but nearly losing my mother due to the selflessness of her calling for more years than I can remember was beyond ‘inconvenient’ to her and us, her family’s future,” Rogaly said.