The Trip to Mamohau
Hospital
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Friday March 10th 2000
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Mamohau Hospital Mamohau Hospital is high up in the northern mountains of Lesotho. It is one of four Roman Catholic Hospitals. The hospital is part of a mission that includes a nursery school, primary and secondary schools and several health clinics and health posts in more remote villages. CHAL administers all of the Christian hospitals and clinics in Lesotho. Click on the picture for an expanded view |
Today I traveled 3 hours by car to Mamohau Hospital high up in the northern mountains of Lesotho. The road was unbelievable. The good news is that it was paved. There has been a recent project to build a dam on the river which runs through the mountains to send water to South Africa, hence the paving, with money from the outside investors in the water project. There were many hair pin turns with drop offs of several thousand feet. The only guard rails that I saw were for a very short stretch at the sharpest turn on the summit. Fortunately we were traveling with a heavy four wheel drive vehicle and an experienced Masotho driver, so it did not feel TOO dangerous at the time (which means I only held my breath for half of the trip up the mountain). I took some pictures, which I have included in this note.
The purpose of my trip was to be a guest of the Mamohau Primary Health Care Team. They were holding a 3-day workshop for HIV positive persons and people living with AIDS and their families. Let me back up a minute and explain that HIV/AIDS is an enormous problem in all of sub-Saharan Africa, and Lesotho is no exception. Official government figures place the incidence of HIV positive adults at 10%. But in South Africa and the surrounding countries, the figures are close to 20% and greater. Most health care professionals here think that the real numbers are close to 20% in Lesotho. Think of that, one in five adults has HIV with no hope of any treatment beyond "comfort measures" and trying to combat infections with antibiotics. The drug regimens that we have in the U.S. do not exist here.
Now let’s talk about reasons for the underestimates. First of all, access to health care is a problem in many areas. Many people use traditional healers (herbalists, shamans, "witch doctors"). Most delay treatment for any kind of illness until they are VERY sick. There is no health insurance here. Most can’t afford food, let alone medicine and a doctor’s bill, or the traditional healer’s bill. But a far bigger problem is that people are afraid to be even tested for HIV because of the stigma that being positive will bring to them and their families. If you are found to be positive, and others know it, you will be shunned by your family and friends. It is not unusual for the family to kick you out of the household. You may be thought to be bewitched, under a spell and generally "bad luck". It is very difficult for health workers to get HIV positive persons to tell their sexual partners of their HIV status to stop the spread of the disease, one of the fundamental principles of sexually transmitted disease prevention. Some people who have "gone public" with their HIV status have had death threats against them.
So back to Mamohau Hospital. Some how the PHC Team had convinced HIV positive persons to gather…an unheard of phenomenon in Lesotho. As far as my colleagues know at CHAL and from what we were told by those working in HIV peer support in Maseru, the group in Mamohau was the first ever gathering of HIV positive people in the country. CHAL received an invitation to join the group for their closing day and I was asked to give the closing address to the group. Quite an honor.
All in all we had a very inspiring time together. I joined for a class on use of condoms. Of the 18 participants, only 2 had ever used a condom. The instructor, a very gifted and talented lady, proceeded to give a demonstration of how to use a condom, with a model of a penis. ( I am sure you can imagine the joking that might occur in such a situation. Her use of humor and ability to address the Basotho sexual taboos put the class at ease so that they could not only learn the lesson, but also ask their own questions.) Just to give you an idea of the myths and misconceptions, one woman said that she had been given a condom but did not use it because she had heard that the condom would travel from the vagina to your heart and kill you.
I was once again struck by the dedication of the health care staff and the willingness of the people to come together with what little they have to try and understand their problems. There was a lot of positive sharing and mutual support. We are hopeful that this may be the start of a support group for HIV positive people. My address to the group is an attachment to this note.
Please add to your prayers those who are HIV positive and those who work with them.
Khotso (peace),
Lois
Other Mamohau Pictures
updated
3/22/2000
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