Frustration

A woman has AIDS. She is told to take ARV’s (antiretroviral drugs), use contraceptives, and use a condom when having sex. The lady shows up Friday with shingles (a normal occurrence with HIV+ people) and she thinks she’s pregnant. This means that she is not using contraceptives or a condom! Aaahhh! And guess what! She has had two other children already that have died of AIDS. Two dead children haven’t taught her a lesson yet! You can teach and teach and teach, but there are still people that do stuff like that. Even if the baby is not born HIV+ it will eventually be an orphan. Uuffff. Depressing. Just the tip of the iceberg.

One of the home-based healthcare workers was being assigned HIV+ patients to care for, and they came to a name, and she recognized the name. It’s the name of her mother’s boyfriend. Her mom doesn’t know that her boyfriend is HIV+. The law says that the healthcare worker cannot disclose a patient’s medical information, but it’s her mom. She talked to the RN about it and the doctor. Then she happed to run into the man in the hallway of the clinic. He didn’t greet her. He just turned the other way and walked off. Well, she has told her mom now, and she’s going to get and HIV test on Monday. Scary.

A man hasn’t told anybody yet that he is HIV+. Every person is supposed to have a treatment buddy, so that when they get sick, there is someone who knows how the medication is supposed to be taken and can take care of them. Plus, when the patient gets sick and has to go to the hospital, it’s always a bad situation when the family comes to the hospital and wants to know why mom/dad/sis/etc is there, and the healthcare workers can’t tell them. The family gets really frustrated and angry. Anyhow, this man has 3 kids, and his wife is already dead. If nobody knows he has HIV then who’s going to take care of his kids when he gets sick? Who’s going to provide for them?

Some patients to come to get tested until very late, and then they start taking ARV’s when they are already very ill. They die, and then the family thinks that the patient died because he/she took the ARV’s. The healthcare workers try and explain that it was already very late in the disease and that’s why the patient died, but some people will only believe that the ARV’s did it.

On the radio I heard the prime minister of health promote the use of beet root, garlic, and lemon juice in order to combat AIDS instead of ARV’s. No wonder family members blame ARV’s for their relative’s death.

What needs to be done? TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, and then teach some more. Then scream in your room alone, then cry, then pray.