Ikhaya Lobomi - KwaZulu Natal, South Africa

The 17-bed hospice has operated on a minimal budget and is largely dependent on donations from local clinics, shops, and businesses. Although the building is in a poor state of repair, organisers claim that patients referred to the hospice are provided with a high quality of care. For some, health is improved so drastically that they are able to return home. Others are released to die at home. Services either in the ward or at home are available free of charge to any person in the community who is in need.

The hospice is staffed totally by volunteers from the local area, many of whom are HIV-positive or have family members who are infected. Some of the volunteers receive monthly food parcels; some are empowered to earn an income through bead work in association with the Hillcrest AIDS Centre; and others receive no remuneration at all. Volunteers visit patients in the ward and at home to provide counseling; pain relief; supplies like food and detergent; and social and spiritual support. To prepare them for this role, the volunteers receive ongoing training in basic nursing and counseling skills. As part of this training, they learn to identify and refer patients who require more advanced medical intervention. Every month, home-based caregivers visit patients and their families in an effort to:

• Promote awareness and prevention of HIV and AIDS
• Provide support to the families
• Reduce patient costs in terms of items such as transport and hospital fees
• Decrease the isolation of people living with HIV/AIDS, and reduce the stigma of the disease in the community
• Increase compliance with treatment by monitoring therapy.

Development Issues

HIV/AIDS.

The Valley of a Thousand Hills in KwaZulu Natal is at once a place of awesome beauty and abject poverty. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is rife amongst its people.

In June 2000, a Christian couple gathered a group of volunteers from the local community to respond to the needs of HIV/AIDS sufferers. With support from the Hillcrest Aids Centre and surrounding community, Zimele (a lay pastor and missionary) and Patience (a nurse) Mavata converted a building into a hospice. Beds and linen were donated by Entabeni Hospital.

Twenty of the 50 volunteers receive food parcels from the Hillcrest AIDS Centre, which also funded their basic initial training.

Ikhaya Lobomi (The Home of Life) has provided care to more than 100 terminally ill AIDS patients. Double this number has received support and care and been able to die in relative comfort in their own homes.