Gail Johnson has committed her life to providing refuge and uplifting the lives of mothers and children living with HIV/Aids, and to date she is showing no signs of slowing down.
Johnson, an HIV/Aids activist and founder of Nkosi’s Haven, spoke to Sowetan on Tuesday ahead of the 33rd anniversary of World Aids Day, highlighting it is important to remember the lives lost due to HIV and also applaud the scientists who contributed to the advancement of research that played a role in managing the disease.
Johnson said despite the country being gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic, it was still essential to remember that HIV/Aids was still around. Nkosi’s Haven is a non-governmental organisation that provides a residential care facility for mothers, children and orphans living with HIV and has become a beacon of hope for them in the past 20 years.
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The facility, based in Olifantsvlei, south of Johannesburg, houses 95 children and 28 mothers. Its staff includes nine caregivers, a social worker, matron and a play therapist.
“It is essential to commemorate World Aids Day not only because of the strides that have been made from a medication and intervention point of view but this year is actually the 40th anniversary since the first cases of HIV were discovered in 1981 in the western world. We have had 40 years of HIV/Aids,” Johnson said.
“Initially, it was a death sentence and people died the most horrible deaths. We had people manifesting as major activists to get things normalised for HIV-positive people and get research done so that people can get medication for those who were infected, especially in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. We should honour and toast those who did the research to save lives.”
Johnson said it was difficult for patients at her centre who lived with HIV during Covid-19 and the hard lockdown in March last year.
“Our caregivers’ workload was too much as they had to do things differently because we had to comply with Covid-19 protocols. Normally, our residents come to our dining hall to fetch their food but this time we had to go to their cottages and give them their food in order to avoid long queues and ensure there is social distancing,” said Johnson.
“The movement of running backwards and forward for our staff was exceptionally difficult to deal with. Since we take care of HIV patients, we were worried that someone might be hit hard [infected with Covid-19] and we were all stressed. To be safe, we would conduct Covid-19 tests every two weeks.”
She said to date the centre has had around 48 Covid-19 cases. “Luckily, no-one was hospitalised or died. The people were asymptomatic.”
Despite all the challenges they faced, Johnson said the support from her staff was commendable. “The co-operation was phenomenal. We made sure everyone had to wear a mask, sanitise our areas, get gloves for our caregivers and practice social distancing,” she said.
Johnson encouraged all people to go and get tested for HIV and know their status.
Similarly, caregivers at the centre told Sowetan that they had to change their way of caring for their patients in order to safeguard themselves from Covid-19.
Ntombi Maseko, 33, a nurse at the centre, said she had to deliver medication to the residents’ cottages.
Cynthia Ndlovu, 50, a matron at the centre, said they had to cancel some of the children’s activities due to Covid-19. “We could not take them to the Southgate Mall anymore to do shopping and unwind because of Covid-19. They even stopped playing board games such as puzzles because we did not want to have gatherings. In case of infections, we set up quarantine cottages for them,” said Ndlovu.
Meanwhile, advocacy groups Treatment Action Campaign and Section27 said HIV treatment had decreased during the initial hard lockdown but this had since improved.
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