|
|
 |
Mothers lend their strength to HIV/AIDS sufferers
Cape Argus, 09 September 2002. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
|
A unique counselling programme designed to empower HIV-positive mothers and help break through the stigma around HIV/AIDS began at Groote Schuur Hospital less than a year ago - and now it is set to be replicated as far afield as India as well as throughout Africa.
Tied closely to provincial programmes to help prevent HIV transmission from pregnant women to their babies using the anti-AiDS drug nevirapine, the programme recognises the women involved as vital resources for their intellectual and emotional skills.
It switches them from being victims to empowered women helping destigmatise HIV/AIDS, says Groote Schuur Hospital's Dr Mitch Besser, who facilitated the Mothers to Mothers-to-Be (M2M2B) programme, but who says all credit must go to the remarkable women involved.
Invited to be presented at the Barcelona World HIV/AIDS Conference 2002 in July, the programme is now set to be rolled out locally at sites stretching across the province, but also to Durban, other African countries and India.
Besser's aim is to see M2M2B counsellors operating at every site in the Western Cape where the nevirapine programme operates, as back-up to the excellent pre-test and post-test counselling already built into that programme.
"Ongoing counselling through pregnancy was a problem and we sensed a need to deliver more service in the name of education and counselling," he said.
"The women are not trained counsellors but rather mentors. They have personal experience of being positive themselves and so are an extraordinary resource. They have been through the process themselves and made decisions in clinical situations.
"The programme brings back their skills to mothers who follow them through the MTCT (mother-to-child transmission) programme, they discuss how it works but their input is ongoing, including helping patients to tell their families and loved ones."
In Khayelitsha, these mentor mothers have even been called on to go home with patients, and be with them when they disclose their status to their families.
Mothers undergo a one-day training curriculum before embarking on their peer counselling role.
Thanks to funding from Woolworths, the Pick 'n Pay Foundation, the Starr Foundation in New York, Avert in the United Kingdom, the International Relief Team in California, as well as private donors, M2M2B peer counselling is up and running at Groote Schuur, in Site B in Khayelitsha and at Mowbray Maternity Hospital.
A fourth site will open later this month at the Vanguard community health centre.
Proposals have also come from Khayelitsha's other maternal obstetric unit at Michael Mapongwana Hospital, and from Leadership South Programme, representing five other clinics in the city.
As a result of the Barcelona presentation, Besser said they had been approached by the Catholic Medical Missions Board to link M2M2B to MTCT programmes they support in Durban, and inquiries had come from programmes in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria, Namibia, Botswana, Tanzania and India.
"Funds and time limit us, but in the coming months we hope to find more of each to expand our programmes and efforts." |
| Was this article helpful to you? |
 ?100%???? ?0%
|
|
Back
|
|
|
|
