Update on the termination of the state treaty
With the Limpopo Department of Health’s decision not to renew the state contract of a leading non-profit medical center, Cathrine Thabethe and another 3,773 patients were transferred to nearby state facilities for treatment.
On good days, Cathrine Thabethe would walk home the last stretch from work at the Ndlovu Clinic in Elandsdoorn and be greeted by a rush of grandchildren wrapped around her legs. Thabethe always had her arms wide open, expecting eager hugs from the little ones. But on the winter afternoon of July 10, her heart was heavy as she reached her RDP home in the Walter Sisulu estate in Elandsdoorn. It was her last day of full-time employment and marked the beginning of an uncertain future for her financial and physical health.
No more treatment and no more job
Thabethe is HIV-positive. In addition to working at the Ndlovu Care Group (NCG) in Elandsdoorn, in Limpopo Province, she was also a patient there and benefited from the government-funded ART program supported by the non-profit medical center. With the Limpopo Department of Health’s decision not to renew NCG’s contract, she and another 3,773 patients were transferred to neighboring government facilities for treatment. She also lost her job, one of 28 people retrenched in July due to the termination of the government contract. On her last day at work, she had a farewell dinner with her colleagues. Tears flowed during the short speeches. The atmosphere was very informal and sombre. “This is not a party, it’s just a way to come together before we have to say goodbye,” said Poppy Mashamaite, HR manager at Ndlovu Care Group, that day.
Not just a patient, but part of the family
Thabette’s own tears flowed as she recalled how she had become part of the Ndlovu Care Group family and how she met the center’s founder and CEO, Dr. Hugo Tempelman. It was 2003 when she arrived at Ndlovu literally on death’s doorstep with a CD4 count of 1. She was infected with meningitis. She was just 33 years old. “I slept here for two months. I did nothing, I ate through a straw, and I couldn’t speak or walk. Doctor T (her name for Tempelman) took care of me and put me on ARVs. After I got better, Dr. T gave me food parcels and food vouchers and sent me to a hospital in Witbank so I could rest and heal my mind before I returned to Elandsdoorn,” says Thabethe.
When she arrived back in Elandsdoorn two weeks later, she knew she had to get the younger of her two children to see Tempelman. Her daughter Lungile, who was six years old at the time, had been diagnosed with HIV years earlier at the Philadelphia Clinic. It was the era of AIDS denial and zero public access to treatment. She was told that her child would die. She had already lost her husband and another child to the disease. Tempelman saw Lungile and immediately began treatment. Mother and daughter thrived and regularly attended Ndlovu’s support and compliance groups. Thabethe also recovered from the meningitis.
In 2007, Thabethe Tempelman asked for a job. “My husband was dead, I was a single mother and I said I would do any job because my children deserved to eat and go to school,” she says. Tempelman employed her as a cleaner. She says, “I liked the job because after cleaning, I would talk to the HIV patients who were like me. I was like a counselor to them,” she says.
15 years of treatment ends abruptly
More tears stream down her face as she expresses her sadness at losing her job and her fear about what treatment she will receive at the government facilities. “It is hard for me to leave Ndlovu and know that I will never take my medicine here again,” she says. Thabethe and Lungile were assigned to the Kwarrielaagte clinic. It is about 15 km from their home and the trip to the clinic now costs them R40.
Thabethe hopes to open a spaza store (a small retail store), but she knows it will take a lot of equipment and logistics to make it work.
She is silent for a while, more tears flow. “I will never forget Dr. T.. I call him my father because he did everything for me and for Lungile. Lungi is now 22 and has a daughter who is HIV-negative,” says Thabethe. She doesn’t know what the future holds. But she knows what cannot be taken away from her: her achievement of remaining a stage 1 HIV patient after 15 years of treatment. “I’m proud of myself, and I’m also proud of Dr. T,” she says.
Original article under:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-09-07-spotlight-for-these-patients-the-future-is-not-a-game-part-2-tears-and-fears-as-state-contract-ends/
Read more about this topic:
For these patients, the future is not a game – it is a matter of life and death (Part 1)
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COURT ORDER ON PATIENT TRANSFER
