HIV nurses tell their tales
Posted by Miriam Mannak on July 28, 2009
Working in a South African can be a tricky and an exhausting affair. Under staffed facilities, being under paid, working long hours, and too little resources are some of the issues nurses in South Africa have to deal with on a day to day basis. And then, there are the risks that come with the HIV and TB epidemic.
Pauline Jooste has been working as a nurse for the 31 years. Five years ago, she left South Africa’s public health care system and accepted the position of health worker supervisor at HOPE Cape Town – a non-profit organisation providing outreach, education and counseling at the community level focused on HIV, AIDS and TB in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.
According to her, one of the biggest challenges is being overworked as a result of a shortage of nurses. “The ration of nurses to patients is 1:45, while 1:25 is ideal. That means that we make sacrifices: we do not have lunch, go home late and are at work early in order to help as many people as possible.”
“We specifically need male nurses, but they are hard to find,” Jooste added. “I call them an endangered species.”
The reason why more male nurses in South Africa are needed, is to attract male patients to clinics in order to get themselves tested for HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and other diseases. “Men stay away from health facilities because they are seen as men unfriendly. Why? because most health care workers are female,” Jooste explained.
“The massive workload and long hours are quite a risk to us,” Angela Abrahams added, who also works for HOPE Cape Town.
“When you are tired you are less alert to what you are doing. One day, I was taking blood from a female patient, who was a bit afraid. She jumped and I pricked myself through the latex glove. I had to take antiretrovirals for a month. Luckily the patient tested negative for HIV, and so did I!”
Other health risks South Africa’s nurses face are tuberculosis. “Apart from being provided with a mask, we do not have a lot of ways to protect ourselves,” explained HOPE health care worker Dandelene Sylvester. “I usually wear a mask, but some patients feel that by doing this, we stigmatise them as being dangerous. So sometimes, I rather keep the air flowing between me and the patient, and therefore work without a mask but open all the windows to limit exposure. I simply do not want the patient to think that I see them as less.”
The stigma that is attached to HIV/AIDS, poses challenges to clinic and hospital staff, Jooste told me. “I drive around the communities in a van with a big HOPE logo on it. Not everyone is happy with that, because one is afraid what the neighbourhood will say if the van is parked outside their house. So sometimes, I put a sheet of paper over the logo, to keep everyone happy.”
Luckily, there are moments of joy too. “When a baby from a HIV positive mother is tested negative is simply amazing,” Jooste said. “People in the community of that baby will give a party to celebrate that. Things like that keep you going, and prevent you from losing perspective.”
Copyright content: Miriam Mannak / All rights reserved
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This entry was posted on July 28, 2009 at 4:09 pm and is filed under HIV/AIDS in Africa: News, HIV/Aids in Africa: Women. Tagged: Aids africa, Aids south africa, AIDS stigma, aids treatment, antiretroviral, ARV, cape town, challenge nurse south africa, clinic suth africa, health care south africa, HIV, HIV africa, HIV AIDS, HIV Aids africa, HIV infection, hiv news, HIV nurse, HIV pandemic, HIV positive, HIV south africa, HIV stigma, HIV sub saharan africa, HIV test, HIV treatment, HOPE, HOPE cape town, miriam mannak, news aids, nurse cape town, nurses south africa, people living with HIV, risks nurse south africa, shortage nurses south afria, south africa, TB, tuberculosis, tuberculosis infection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
