Across sub-Saharan Africa, health care systems have been ravaged by the AIDS pandemic. In this context, community health care workers have emerged as the backbone in the response to HIV and AIDS in Africa. Home-based care workers visit the sick in their homes and provide counselling, care and much-needed medicines and food packages. In many rural areas, they are the lifeline for those who would not otherwise have access to health care.
Join the Campaign and support home-based health care workers.
Within the next five years, we will:
- Provide stipends, training and support to home-based care workers, who are mostly HIV-positive women working as volunteers. They need and deserve to be paid for the crucial care that they provide to their communities.
- Increase the quality and availability of training for home-based health care workers, and facilitate meaningful exchanges of information and learning among grassroots organizations.
- Support the creation of regional networks of community health workers, so that home-based care is recognized by governments and the international community as an essential complement to the formal health care system.
- Bring greater awareness of the role of home-based care in Africa, resulting in increased financial and systemic support across the continent.
STEPHEN LEWIS: HOME-BASED HEALTH CARE
project Highlight:
|
In Zambia, where a severe shortage of doctors and nurses has crippled the health care system, home-based health care has become a lifeline for people living with HIV and AIDS. A dozen full-time caregivers from Ranchhod Hospice travel from house to house to distribute medication, counsel families, feed and wash the sick, and refer households to other sources of support. Ranchhod's caregivers make over 4,000 home visits each year to rural areas that wouldn't otherwise have access to health care. They mother the community. |
Learn more about how community-based organizations are turning the tide of AIDS in Africa by reading our newsletter and visiting the What We Do section.