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When your domestic worker needs anti-retroviral therapy
Jo-anne Smetherham. 23 July 2003. Cape Times. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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Employers are increasingly buying vitamin pills, nutritious food - and even anti-retroviral drugs - for their HIV-positive domestic workers and gardeners.
But some well-meaning employers do not understand how HIV progresses into AIDS and when anti-retrovirals are required, and they are missing out on the opportunity to help their workers as a result.
These are the opinions of several HIV/AIDS doctors and health workers at the Hout Bay community health centre who appealed on Tuesday to Hout Bay residents to pay for anti-retrovirals for their employees when the drugs become necessary.
Health care workers at the centre have been "overwhelmed" by the prevalence of HIV in Imizamo Yethu, they say. Around 70 percent of their tuberculosis patients also have HIV, and 31 percent of all pregnant women given HIV tests at the clinic in the first four months of pregnancy tested positive.
There are another 20 patients at the centre who are sick enough to need them. The drugs are needed when a patient has clinical signs of end-stage AIDS or when the CD4 count, which shows the strength of the immune system, dips below 250.
"Up until now a big part of my job has been helping people to die," said Dr Beth Harley. "It is out there. If people aren't seeing it, it is because they haven't looked.
"I was nervous about anti-retrovirals but my patients who had the drugs have felt better after a week, and typically gained five kilograms in a month. I am sure that many more employers would contribute towards the drug costs if they knew more about HIV/AIDS."
Anti-retrovirals now cost R614 from several pharmacies in Cape Town for the combination that is usually first prescribed, said Dr Steve Andrews.
The drugs cost almost three times this amount four years ago and would be even cheaper if generics were made available.
Many employers have contacted the Hout Bay health centre to find out how to help their domestic workers and gardeners with HIV/AIDS, said the local community health forum. Many of these employers were ill-informed about HIV/AIDS.
A Hout Bay woman whose domestic worker died of AIDS-related illnesses spoke to the Cape Times "in penance".
"I went to America to visit family and promised Magdalena that I would raise money there to pay for her anti-retrovirals," she said, hauling out a picture of the woman.
"Magdalena's sister and her brother-in-law died of AIDS, and so did her brother and his wife.
She had 11 children in the Transkei to support - that's why I promised her she wouldn't have the same fate as her siblings. But I was ignorant. She looked well and I didn't know how sick she really was.
"Her other employer would have paid for the drugs until I got back. Neither of us knew when she needed them. I got back and heard she had died. I cried for two weeks."
The Hout Bay community health centre has registered a non-profit organisation, called the Haart Fund, to raise money for residents needing anti-retrovirals. To find out more phone 082 338 3175. |
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