This article is from page 48 of the 2008-02-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 48 JPG
LIKE all grannies Ouma likes to spoil her grandson and give him some money for sweets. She is one of the few living in the townships of South Africa who has managed to get a government pension.
But in the case of 11 year old Veron, his granny’s kindness is literally kill- ing him. Veron is infected with the AIDS virus and the sweets are play- ing havoc with his blood counts.
Sr Ethel and her care workers are on one of their regular visits to his mother, Rochelle Grootboom.
Rochelle and two of her sisters are also HIV positive. A third has died from the virus.
“Rochelle had a CD4 (blood count) of 22 when we found her. A normal count 1s 500. She should have died’, says Nurse In Charge, Muriel Eskok.
Rochelle is concerned that Veron is getting wild and neglecting his schoolwork. Typical of an I1 year old, he doesn’t like medicine and is not taking his anti-viral medication . The stick-thin woman knows she is too week to force him. It’s too much for Rochelle, who breaks down in ReraN Ce
“lve known Rochelle since she was a little girl. She was one of the chil- dren who came to me when all I had was the loan of a tree to sit under’, says Sr Ethel.
Rochelle is just one of 120,000 people who live in the shantytown.
Every day, the five teams of trained careworkers visit about five clients rele ee
They have around 200 clients at any given time who need to be vis- ited twice a week. The workers dress wounds, check how medication 1s go- ing, treat hypertension, wash out peo- ple mouths — oral thrush and TB are two common diseases among people with the virus — and clean houses when the clients are too sick.
The house where Rochell, her mother, son and her mother’s part- ner live is made of thin wood and measures no more than 18 feet by 30 feet. There are four tiny rooms, no bathroom and they cook on a primus stove. Some shacks are much worse than this one, which is painted and Ore
Township people are often in de- nial about the possibility of having AIDS. “If they are tested early and get the antiviral drugs, they can live for maybe ten or twelve years. If they come late, about two years’, says Muriel.
Six in ten people are infected with the virus. Sr Ethel dosn’t like speak- ing about numbers. “One mother dy- ing of AIDS is too many”, she says.
Rape is common in the townships, based on the myth that having sex with a virgin is a cure. Sr Ethel tells the story of a nine-year old girl who was raped by her uncle. The child be- OF Weslo NNKerelKerO mrs NeLOMONoem
It is the culture than men are disin-
clined to use condoms, thinking it a slur on their masculinity or the faith- fullness of their partners.
The testament that the virus is
decimating the poor is in the cleared spaces where the shacks of AIDS victims have been burned and in the rows of fresh graves which stand in
the shadown of a large cross on the javeeR
The cross bears the inscription, ‘“Ethel’s People.”