One Family ’s Quiet Quest for Namibia’s HIV-Free Generation

March 01, 2017A community health worker ’s two daughters both share their mother’s air of calm, but only one shares her HIV status.It ’s delicate work, talking with clients who’ve stopped taking their HIV medicines, says Loide Iikuyu, a community health worker at Onandjokwe Hospital in remote northern Namibia.“I talk with them so peacefully,” she says. “You must talk, slowly by slowly, to find out what are the reasons they are defaulting on their medications.”Part of Loide ’s job is to seek out clients who, according to Onandjokwe Hospital’s records, have stopped coming in to collect their HIV meds. And she has to convince them—in her naturally quiet, gentle voice—to start back up, both to stay healthy and to avoid transmitting the virus to others. And she has to do it without chastising them, or making them feel worse than they often already do.She didn ’t know that her husband had contracted HIV, or that he had transmitted the virus to her.Sometimes Loide finds the reason someone has stopped coming in is because they can ’t find transportation from their homes to the faraway hospital. Others have died. And some have stopped because taking their antiretroviral drugs on an empty stomach makes them feel sick—this reason has come up a lot this year, she says, as aterrible drought has devastated crops in the north, where HIV rates are particularly high, reaching22.6% in Onandjokwe district.Photos Loide Iikuyu (center) talks with health worker...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Source Type: news