Caring for family and community

My name is Sibongile*. I am 45-years old and live in Mbabane. I work as a care worker taking care of my husband who has HIV/AIDS and other people living with AIDS in my community. I also cook food for orphaned and vulnerable children for AMICAAL.

Before I started home based care work I worked as a dressmaker for the Sitanani Association.   We used to sell the goods we made then share the money with each other.   But there was no real market for the goods and we got little money.

I started doing home based care work in 1999 as a volunteer not knowing then that one day I would be taking care of my husband. I received free training by AMICAAL through the Salvation Army. The training took two weeks. I learnt how to counsel people living with HIV and AIDS, and was trained by another organisation on how to help pregnant women who have HIV. Being able to counsel has helped me a lot because I was able to help my sick husband. It was not easy to accept that he is positive but as a trained care worker I managed to overcome the challenges.   My husband has been living with HIV for the past five years.

I counsel my patients and make sure that they take their medication properly. I check if they have enough food, and if there is not enough, I ask the Salvation Army for donations. I don’t give my patients food because I was taught not to do that. If a patient is not being taken care of properly by their family, I bathe them, wash their clothes and clean their rooms. I educate people living with the patients and the community as well.

I stay with my patients for about an hour or sometimes more if they are having problem.   Most of my patients stay close by to where I live and I can walk to visit them.   I have five patients in each homestead including my husband.

My husband has been taking ARVs for three years. He went to talk the principal at our children’s school about his status. I can not afford to buy school uniforms and shoes for my children – they eat the food that I cook for the orphaned and vulnerable children. My children are still young, with four in lower primary school. Since my husband got sick I am the one who takes care of everything at home. The welfare of my children affects my husband badly. I think if I was not trained for home based care work I would not have been able to manage.

Life is tough for me because I am now the breadwinner and I can’t leave my patients and attend to my husband all day even though he is bedridden. I wake up early in the morning at 4am. I take a bath then cook for my husband, clean the house, bath him, change his clothes, then give him food and make sure that he takes it. At 6am I take care of the children then at 6:30am, leave home to school to prepare food for the orphaned and vulnerable children.

I leave at 9am for my second visit. I greet everyone at the house and go to my patients’ room to ask how he or she is and to find out if they have eaten and taken their medication. Sometimes I have to ask a family member to go and fetch the patient’s medication if they have run out. I normally leave for my next visit at 11am.

Sometimes it is hard when patients refuse to take their medication. But I have the skills to deal with this. My work has helped me and given me the strength I need to take care of those living with HIV and AIDS. I treat my husband like any other patient, even though I am not able to be with him throughout the day. Fortunately he does not need to be monitored constantly. Before I leave I make sure to put his food and medication next to him where he can take it by himself. After school the children are with him and I have told them to ask my neighbour for help if they need any. Depending on where I am, I sometimes go home during the day as well.