September, 2 2004

Monthly visit to the Home Based Care centre in Harding.

A team comprising of volunteers from Canada, Porte Rico and the USA accompanied the DFL staff members (Mr Petros Mtalane and Heinrich Botes) on the monthly visit to Harding in August 2004. Dr Don Allen gave a lecture to the community volunteers on the importance of oral health for terminal AIDS patients. Mzo Zuma, a nursing student from Pietermaritzburg helped with Zulu interpretation. The team visited a few patients during the afternoon using the occasion to support the family members and patient while at the same time offering hands-on in-service training to the community volunteers responsible for the care of the patient. In the picture above they are at the home of a patient living with AIDS near Harding. The family of the patient appreciated the visit and posed outside the house together with the DFL staff stationed at Deemount.

Dr Don Allen, dentist and DFL member, presenting a lecture on dental care for terminal patients at the monthly in-service training session held at Deemount near Harding. Mr Mzo Zuma, a nursing student helped with the Zulu translation.

Rebecca Donovan, Steven Pasquale and James Abbott are interns from Pennsylvania in the USA. Rebecca is working at DFL's Day Care Centre while the men are involved in the care of terminal AIDS patients near Harding in the KwaZulu Natal Province of South Africa. Here they are at a church service with the snow-clad Ingeli mountains in the background.

Dr Don Allen, dentist and DFL member examining one of the children cared for at DFL's Day Care Centre near Harding.

The sad reality of AIDS: A grandfather buys a simple coffin for his grandson that died of AIDS in the Harding area of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Very often it is the grandparents that "inherit" the consequences of this disease...sick and dying children and orphaned grandchildren. They often receive a meagre old age pension from the government (that is hardly enough for one person) and then share that with up to 15 people. Soon this generation will no longer be there to fill this gap of caring for those infected and affected. Doctors for Life International is stepping into this gap through Home Based Care and Project LifeChild. How can you assist?