Hillcrest Aids Centre Trust
Support of Home-based Care Programs
Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
Background
The Hillcrest AIDS Centre was opened in 1991 in response to the threat of the AIDS pandemic. The organization describes its mission as a responsibility to: "show unconditional love to all infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in a practical way".
Initially, the focus of the Hillcrest was mainly on education and care - such as providing one-on-one education of people infected and families affected by the disease, as well as talks in schools and businesses. A lot of work was also done to encourage faith-based groups to get motivated and involved. Counselling of people both infected and affected by AIDS/HIV, as well as bereavement counselling was done with all who requested it.
In 1999 the Hillcrest was restructured as a trust with eleven trustees including representative professionals from religious, medical, financial and legal backgrounds. The trustees, all volunteers, provide guidance for the staff and policy decisions are made at board level.
The Centre always tries to respond to needs of the pandemic as they arise. There is now an active home-based care project in Molweni, Embo, KwaNuswa, KwaNgcolosi, Inchanga and Nqeto. The program has evolved into a set of holistic care activities. For example, the counselling project feeds into the home-based care project, and the income generation project not only provides an income for those who no longer work because of illness, but enables home-based care volunteers to earn an income and continue their work as volunteer caregivers.
Sometimes, however, home-based care is not enough. More and more often children are giving up school to become the caregiver of a sick parent or a patient is left alone all day whilst the only breadwinner goes out to work. The reality is that women in particular are caring for the sick and dying and, increasingly, elderly women are left to care for their ailing children and orphaned grandchildren - people are simply burning out. As a result, Hillcrest has negotiated for premises and developed a plan to set up a six bed home-from- home establishment with volunteer caregivers providing 24-hour care and medical backup.
The Project
The project funded by the SLF will continue the home-based care work of Hillcrest, and assist in providing additional respite care for families of those infected and affected by HIV.
What does this mean? Nursing care will be provided to the community by volunteers (the volunteers will have been trained, receive a uniform and receive food parcels); the six registered nurses who are already out in the field providing home based care will be able to provide more specialized palliative and clinical care. The nurses can assess patients too sick or impoverished to travel to the nearest clinic or hospital. In addition, they can provide medication for opportunistic infections and refer to a more specialized facility if necessary. It is all part of the community effort to deal with the pandemic, and it brings essential support and care to all.
SLF Ref#: HAC.04.09