As a founder member of Plettaid, established in 2002, it seems salutary to review the past decade and take stock. Plettaid is an initiative created with the intention of alleviating the suffering caused by the HIV pandemic. Our focus changed as different urgent needs began to take precedence. As I look back over the years I ask myself: did we make the best choices? In retrospect one always tends to wonder whether one could have done it better. Suffice it to say: we did the best we could with our given resources. It has been a challenging ten years, but I believe we have contributed much towards the alleviation of suffering.
When I was first employed by this newly formed NGO I asked myself many questions: what would we leave for posterity once HIV was under control? In fact, can it be controlled? Can we, in the midst of this disaster, find opportunities for positive change? What is the point if there is no cure?
For many years, we worked as if in a war zone, tirelessly: there was no respite. We distributed food parcels, nursed and supported the deathly ill, facilitated the application of grants, transported the weak, trained lay nurses, and bickered with the Department of Health. As fast as we helped people there would be more at our door. The need seemed endless.
As soon as antiretroviral treatment was made available we invested much energy into encouraging (or perhaps I should say coercing) people to take this treatment. At the same time, we continued to drive, feed, clothe and help to bury people who could not access or cope with these powerful medicines.
I saw with awe how my dedicated colleagues gave their all to the part they had to play in endeavouring to overcome the ravages wrought in people’s lives by HIV.
We saw too the immense demands placed upon the public health staff in the clinics. In triumph, we opened a much needed twenty-four hour nursing unit which saved lives. In despair, we closed it having failed to access the necessary funds.
Yes, it is a shock to realise that all this is happening in Plettenberg Bay – picture perfect holiday destination. Every year, we are greatly encouraged by a group of handpicked students from the United States of America, hosted by ourselves, who spend their time shadowing our township programme, learning about HIV and public health in South Africa. They are saddened and amazed at the divide between ‘town’ and ‘township’.
We employ lay counsellors whose responsibility it is to carry out HIV testing and offer emotional support. This was for me an exciting development: HIV had compelled public health to adopt an holistic approach, and radically expand its clinic protocols to include support for the emotional, psychological and spiritual needs of the patient. No longer would medicines alone be regarded as the only source of healing. Having been sensationalised by gay men as a human rights issue HIV gave previously disenfranchised South Africans an opportunity to stand up for their rights as patients. This is a difficult thing to do when you are not feeling well, but counsellors are present now in all the clinics making a valuable contribution to the holistic health of the patients.
Another achievement was the development of home-based care in partnership with the Department of Health. Funded by the European Union for some years, this impeccable development plan included a training scheme to draw lay nurses into the profession quickly and easily. Sadly, although this vision to provide South Africa with enough nurses failed to materialise, Plettaid took the plan to fruition by providing a home-based service which met the required protocols of being affordable, accessible, acceptable and accountable (the 4As). This is an outstanding service staffed by extraordinary people. As the intensity of township needs abates, we are growing into serving all areas equally… town as well as township.
It is clear that without checks and balances any home-based care service has the potential to become a home-based patient neglect service. In order to fully attain the four qualities mentioned above Plettaid turned to Hospice Palliative Care SA for help in guiding the development of our services, with the result that we were offered membership in 2009. Thus Hospice Plett was born.
It was only a short while after the founding of Plettaid that our attention was drawn to the plight of women and children traumatised by domestic violence. In addition, an increasing number of pregnant women who tested positive for HIV were rejected by their partners.
In response to this need Plettaid established and ran Invicta House Women’s Shelter for many years. Hundreds of women and children have used this facility for periods of time ranging from a single night to a couple of years. Invicta House is to be upgraded and developed as a halfway house for women from all walks of life. This vision includes the creation of income generating projects.
Careful scrutiny of the Department of Health’s 2012 and 2020 plans reveals that nursing is expected to be a community-based response to need, meaning that sub-acute as well as palliative nursing care should take place outside of hospitals and clinics. Such units would be known as ‘step-down’ or ‘intermediate’ care beds. No such facility existed in Plettenberg Bay, but Plettaid was enabled to meet this need through the establishment of Trinity House. This eight bed unit, which met the four A criteria, was able to offer its services only for one short year, at which point Trinity House was forced into closure due to financial setbacks. This was a sad day for Plettaid as well as for the neighbourhood community who had so enthusiastically supported this lovely unit with their love and commitment.
We hope that Trinity House will re-open at some stage in the future.
Any community anywhere in the world needs to be able to care for those unable to care for themselves. Should it not be a basic human right to be cared for, as well as a fundamental responsibility to care for each other? Our mission is ‘quality of life for all in Plettenberg Bay’, and the vision of Plettaid to facilitate ‘free home and 24 hour nursing care and shelter for all in need’ is a vision very close to realisation. We know how to do it. We know why we do it. We need to build a sustainable future with the aid of reliable funding solutions. Once the latter is in place our years of endeavour will have created the following, available to all in Plettenberg Bay:
Hospice Plett – free home nursing care, including hospice palliative care.
24-hour nursing care, when home nursing is not sufficient.
Shelter and opportunities for vulnerable women.
None of these were available prior to the establishment of Plettaid. The years of hard work and commitment have paid off. I salute the staff who in the tough earlier years responded more with love and respect than with skills and resources.
When HIV became a chronic, manageable disease we pushed ourselves beyond our original goals, vindicating the people of Plettenberg Bay who had founded Plettaid in good faith in 2002: Trinity House, Invicta House and Hospice Home-Based Care are models of philanthropic and reliable community development.
To view the Plettaid Foundation in the Prodder NGO Directory, click here.
