HIV & AIDS

From 2006 to 2007, the AngloGold Ashanti Fund has devoted 17%, 22% and 12% respectively of its spending to HIV & AIDS-related projects. Potchefstroom Hospice is one such project the Fund has supported. The hospice received a three year grant of R600,000 for the period of 2004 to 2007, and in 2008, R250,000 was granted towards their priority needs.

The hospice was established in 1998 for patients suffering from terminal illnesses. About 95% of patients suffer AIDS-related illnesses. The hospice has a multicultural, multi-skilled professional team, consisting of two professional nursing sisters and 40 home-based care workers who provide training to community-based organisations and non-governmental organisations that operate in the fight against HIV & AIDS and care for the patients. The hospice offers services ranging from education to medical treatment, including pain management and infection control. The hospice is currently being guided by the Hospice and Palliative Care Association (the professional membership body of South African hospices) and it also works closely with the Departments of Health and Social Development in the North West province. This has enabled the hospice to access the services of doctors at the nearest provincial hospital.

The hospice assists on average 200 patients a month through its adult home-based care programme in the Ikageng, Potchefstroom, Promosa and Mohadin areas. Two full-time nurses visit patients and families at home to support and give professional care in pain and symptom management. On average, 40 staff members who are supervised by professional nurses, make 1,200 visits a month to patients’ homes.

The hospice offers a children’s day care programme, called Amaphelo (Life), to assist orphans and vulnerable children in the community. This programme was established in 1994 and currently cares for 150 children between the ages of four months to six years. Children are collected from their homes and brought to the centre where they are cared for by trained community care workers, as well as supervised by a trained nursery school teacher. The community care workers are trained in child care by the Department of Social Services. The HIV-positive children are all attended to by the professional nurse daily and at the day care centre, those too ill to attend day care are attended to by the nurse at home. The children are stimulated through early childhood development activities and are prepared for entry into local primary schools.

Apart from regular patients, the hospice worked with 241 new households between 2007 and 2008 to determine services needed in each household, with the following findings:

• 132 terminally ill people were identified,
• 127 cases of tuberculosis,
• five cases of cancer were identified,
• 91 orphans were identified,
• 38 child-headed households were found, and
• 68 poverty stricken households were identified.

Other activities that the hospice offers include helping families to access social grants, and since the community care workers are trained as lay counsellors, they provide emotional support to families during the illness and bereavement period. Access to doctors and social workers is provided through a referral system to the Department of Health and Social Services.

The manager of the AngloGold Ashanti CSI Fund, Sipho Mahlangu, summed up the Fund’s view on the Potchefstroom Hospice: “This is the kind of project that we are happy to support. The hospice has been running successfully for a number of years in our operating areas. It is embedded in the community and is proving a good all-round service to HIV & AIDS patients and their families.”