Thursday, 24 September 2009
IMAGINE being a single HIV positive parent with two young children who look up to you for everything, no food in the house and no source of income.
Worse still, with no hope as to what you will eat before and after you take your life-prolonging Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs) and let alone feed your minor children who, because of hunger, are in tears.
While to many the coming of a new day is always a symbol of the goodness of life -another chance to start afresh - for you it’s now nothing more than a reminder of your daily struggles to bring food to your table and struggle another day.
Deep inside your heart is the cry for your children who are also bearing the brunt of your hardships. This is not some script taken out of a novel, but it is only a short clip of what happens in the life of Foibe Kangumbe from Ondangwa whose story is no different from many other Namibians who, because of being HIV positive and living in knee high poverty each day, face an eternal struggle to survive.
Speaking to Informante last week in Windhoek, Kangumbe, who was attending a week’s training on proposal writing organised by the Social Marketing Association, said her husband of 12 years dumped her when she was sick and pregnant with their second child.
“I struggled to make ends meet after my husband left me. I had to struggle to get money for food for my other child and myself. When I had gone to the antenatal clinic that’s when I was told at the hospital that I was HIV positive. I have struggled to run around to raise my kids and up to now I am still struggling. In 2007 I went to the court to get my ex-husband to pay N$150 maintenance for our children’s up keep but he has failed to do so up to now.
“The children are not going to school because I can’t afford to pay the tuition; there is no food for my children and myself. My ex -husband is working but he does not want to help us,” Kangumbe painfully said.
The mother of two said because of lack of money in most cases she fails to go and collect her ARVs on time at the local hospital which is quite far from where she lives.
Kangumbe’s case is just a microcosm of the challenges people living with HIV are facing in Namibia.
A snap survey by Informanté revealed that most of them face problems ranging from income for general upkeep, cost of transport to and from hospitals and most of all stigma from society.
Twenty-five year-old Johannes Maseka from Rundu, who has been living positively with the HIV virus for the past three years says despite the massive awareness campaigns to conscientise people that HIV and Aids is a disease like any other, people were still stigmatising and discriminating those who openly reveal their HIV status.
Maseka says since he openly disclosed his status people in his community are now stigmatising him.
“My sister, people are discriminating me where I live. Some people don’t want to be close to me while, for instance, every time there are community meetings if I am late some will start shouting once they see me coming that I am late because I was taking my ARVs.”
Maseka, a married man, said apart from stigmatisation and discrimination his other greatest problem was transport to go and collect his ARVs at the hospital.
“Getting to the hospital to get my ARV drugs is a very big problem since I am not working. I have to ask for money from my parents every time I have to travel and sometimes they won’t have the money,” he said.
Nicolene, who preferred to give only her first name, has been living with HIV in Windhoek for the past 12 years. She says besides a lack of taxi money to go and collect drugs from Katutura Hospital she also has to deal with the long queues at the hospital.
“We have problems with transport money to go and collect our ARVs at the hospital while at times we fail to raise the N$15 the hospital charges for the drugs. Some of us stay very far while others are bed ridden. When we eventually get to the hospital we have to deal with long queues from the reception, to the doctor and to the pharmacy and in most cases we would not have eaten anything as we wake up early so as to beat the long queues and because of that we end up not taking our medication.”
Those entrusted with assisting people in Nicolene’s condition have also tended to take advantage of their situation.
Ebnesia Mauno (33) from Keetmanshoop who was diagnosed with the HIV virus some seven years ago says besides having to deal with stigma, volunteers at HIV and Aids non-governmental organisations were not being supportive.
“There is too much discrimination from the organisations that deal with people living with HIV and Aids. On Wednesdays, we are supposed to get a meal at the centre but they deny us that food and feed us once a month instead. Last time, blankets came which were meant for us but the volunteers ended up taking them leaving us with nothing. Our greatest problem is volunteers are not supportive while we people living with the HIV are not getting the benefits,” she said sadly.
Director of the Namibia Network of Aids Service Organisations Michael Mulondo concurred with the people living with HIV on the transport and food problems they face.
Mulondo also said a great number of people living with HIV don’t have access to food and nutrition.
“When you take ARVs, it enhances one’s appetite and one needs to eat a lot. There is a programme where they get Energy-pap to last them say two-three months however because of food problems other members of the family end up also eating that pap. However some NGOs like the Social Marketing Association have started some income generating projects in some areas like gardening to try and empower these people.”
Mulondo said another problem people living with HIV face was that some health institutions were not male friendly.
“It’s much easier for a woman to know her status through the anti-natal clinics. Men don’t access that same service. After the woman gets tested, she goes back home with her ARVs and out of sheer ignorance she shares some of her drugs with her male partner who can’t access the drugs and the drugs end up being not enough to last her a whole month and she ends up defaulting.
“NGOs have to educate the public on the need to adhere to what the doctors tell them. Although no official research has been conducted on this, these issues are always being talked about, people have to be educated on how ARVs work and how to use them,” Mulondo said.
Mulondo also said because of the long distances between health centres and where some people live especially in the rural areas others end up defaulting after they fail to get transport money.
According to the Epidemiological Fact Sheet on HIV and Aids in Namibia compiled in 2008 they are an estimated 200,000 people living with HIV in the country.
UNAids says HIV and Aids prevalence among pregnant women attending antenatal care was 19.7% at the end of 2004 and at 19.9% at the end of 2006.
The UN body says a greater burden of the epidemic falls on women with women who become infected at a younger age account for more than 50% of all reported HIV infections.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services estimates that 40,000 people living with HIV are on antiretroviral therapy, however access remains an issue due to a sparsely distributed population and long distance that people living with HIV need to cover to get to the next health facility.
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