Cape Town - Maureen Philander, an energetic, middle-aged woman, has lived with HIV for 12 years, remaining relatively healthy and active, and pointed to her three children as the reason she stays strong.
Philander began taking anti-retroviral drugs three years ago, which besides one recent hiccup, she has taken daily.
“The only option is to deal with it, be positive and focus on my children. That is how I live with it,” she said.
In Blikkiesdorp, where she lives, Philander is actively involved in her community, giving motivational speeches and knocking on doors trying to erode the stigma that surrounds HIV.
She said she struggles to get people to come forward and seek treatment, because they fear judgment by the community.
Pauline Jooste, community outreach facilitator for Hope Cape Town, a non-profit organisation that focuses on HIV/Aids and tuberculosis in the Western Cape, said although South Africa had made great strides in providing HIV treatment since 2006, the stigma remained a major problem.
“When you are HIV positive, you are automatically labelled as sexually promiscuous or dirty,” she said. “It is always what did you do wrong? But, maybe these people are positive from rape or from being in their mother’s womb.”
Philander contracted HIV from her boyfriend, who is also the father of her two youngest children. She said he told her that being promiscuous was part of his culture, and she had to respect that. “I had unprotected sex with my boyfriend who slept around – it’s my fault; I sinned,” she said tearfully.
When Philander built up the courage to tell her family, she was met with ridicule.
“‘Don’t drink out of that cup, she has Aids,’ my family would say whenever I visited them in Mitchells Plain.
“My children had to sleep on dog mats outside,” she said, adding that they were also not allowed to play with her nieces and nephews because of her sickness. “This really hurt me as a mother.”
When Philander was diagnosed with HIV in 2001, she said she wanted to kill herself. “But the doctors at the Hope clinic told me that HIV is not an end; there is a life for you.”
Hope Cape Town has a holistic approach to the fight against HIV/Aids, by helping the entire community. They try to bring everyone together, rather than isolating those with HIV, Jooste said.
Hope provides nutrition sessions, a gardening project, parenting workshops and much more to everyone in the Blikkiesdorp community.
“We are all affected – you, me, everyone – by HIV and Aids,” Jooste said.
Dr Jayne Cunningham, clinical physician at Hope Cape Town, said since the massive government distribution of antiretroviral drugs in 2006, HIV had been controlled, allowing people to live long healthy lives despite being HIV positive.
“People ask why the prevalence is so high,” Cunningham said. “It is because we are stopping people from dying. HIV is a chronic illness, not a death sentence anymore.”
With a huge smile on her face, Philander said: “I wake up in the morning not even thinking I am sick. This is a test. And I am going to pass it.”
Weekend Argus