Thu 11th August 2011

VOLUNTEER TEAM SEES CHALLENGE OF EMBO

A 13 strong volunteer team has just returned from South Africa.  They witnessed the tragic and often hopeless circumstances of people in Embo; 62,000 people without a clinic and frightening levels of community members who are HIV positive.

During two days of torrential rain, the steep sided valleys with precariously placed shacks became treacherous and made the MAI funded Caregivers jobs even more challenging.

Our medical team visited one home where they found a very sick 24 year old single mother (pictured).  Her story illustrates the Embo challenge.  She had been tested and found to be HIV+.  Before she could receive anti-retroviral drugs, she was required (like all patients) to attend three Government courses on three separate days, each of them outside her community.  Having attended two, she missed the third and was therefore refused treatment and required to attend all three sessions again.

When our team visited, she was very weak and unable to walk.  Through the MAI funded Supervising Nurse, they arranged for her to be admitted to the nearby Hillcrest Hospice.  In order to get her to a vehicle, they had to carry her on a broken plastic chair up and down 400 meters of slippery slope.

People with little money and poor health, living in squalid and inaccessible shacks and many miles from treatment centres are losing hope.  The church based Caregivers make a huge difference in challenging circumstances.  "I am in awe of them," said one of our volunteer nurses.

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