May 21, 2007

Tsepong is a different place. The environment here mirrors my state of mind; more fatigue, less optimism, less naïve. There are so many more patients. The hallway this morning was almost impassable. It was a difficult physical struggle to move from one end to the other for most of the day. Ninety-seven patients were seen in total. There are days now when the total exceeds 107 and these are becoming commonplace. Gone are the days when the clinic ended by 3:30 or 4:00 pm, leaving enough time to get home before dark. We were still seeing patients at 5:30. By this time the interpreters have gone home. It is too dangerous for them to travel after dark. For most of the morning there was no electricity. There were so many people waiting to be seen that the nurses weighed them outside. There was not enough room in the hall for a line up to the scale.

Seven thousand patients are now cared for at Tsepong, 2,000 more than when I was here last July. 2,000 are now on ARV’s. The staff is tired, the patients are tired, there is no room for any more and yet more keep coming. All are HIV positive, all are sick, all are in desperate need of the life-saving treatment Tsepong provides. It is an unending tidal wave of people with 200 new patients each month. Some have been on treatment for 2 and a half years, since the clinic opened in December 2004 and now we are seeing the long-term complications of treatment and the terrifying consequences of resistance.

The development of filter clinics has become Tsepong’s number one focus. Many of these people are from rural areas and many will receive treatment form these outlying clinics, lessening the burden at Tsepong. This is the only way this ever-increasing volume of patients will receive the care they need. The work the Canadian staff has accomplished in establishing Tsepong and the infrastructure necessary to begin rolling out ARV’s to the rural centres- 10 in total- is nothing short of miraculous. Three key people, Marnie Mitchell, Russel Armstrong, and Justina have managed to accomplish this. Thousands of lives will be saved as a result.

OHAfrica and Tsepong have taken responsibility for 7,000 African lives……..and counting. There is no apathy, ignorance or lack of response here. Canada should be very proud.