On any given day one can find pairs of home-based care workers from the Sediba Hope Centre out on the streets of the CBD visiting clients too frail or indisposed to visit the clinic in Bosman Street.  The clinic started the home-based service when its staff realised that many HIV / Aids sufferers in the inner city were getting to them way too late to be helped. The seven care workers not only visit patients but also work in the Sediba Hope Clinic itself, offering counselling and other health services.

This is anything but a neatly-packaged, easy job for care workers like Monica Moshoro and Rejoice Mgwana, whose regular clients include the destitute, homeless, prostitutes and those too frail to leave their homes to seek medical attention. One of the most frustrating things to deal with, according to Miss Moshoro, is the fact that many of their patients don’t seem to want to help themselves. “They will often sell their medication, or the condoms supplied by the clinic, making it very difficult for us to treat them. We can only do so much,” she says.

One of their clients, a car guard named Vuyo (not his real name) talks about how he came to Tshwane from Mpumalanga to look for work and to apply for an ID book. A year on and his life has spiralled into one of too much alcohol, no home to call his own, and still no ID. “I can’t even open a bank account because I have no ID,” he recounts. “And so I just spend the money I make.” 

A stone’s throw from the Kruger House Museum in Church Street, Joseph Mahlangu (not his real name) has constructed a makeshift shelter for himself and his girlfriend in the corner of a parking lot. It’s dark, dingy, and anything but hygienic. With a broad, infectious smile, he shows off his pride – his guitar – and the little veggie garden he’s nurturing on a small plot of land. Joseph arrived in Pretoria a decade ago looking for work, but now works mainly as a car guard and doing “piece jobs”. He and his girlfriend are both HIV-positive but are loathe to take medication. “I’m saving up for a car,” he explains. “I don’t have the money to go to the hospital to get ARVs.”

Apart from dealing with the effects of HIV and Aids, the clinic is also finding more of their clients dependent on the drug Nyaope, which originated in Tshwane. Nyaope, a mix of dagga and heroine, is extremely addictive, often drawing its users into lives of crime or prostitution in order to afford their next “fix”. 

Sister Sebadi Mokone, clinic coordinator at Sediba, explains that many HIV / Aids sufferers are not on Antiretroviral (ARV) medication for several reasons. Amongst others, many do not believe the medication works, some are too drunk to take themselves to hospital to get their medication, while some have just simply given up. “They have lost hope for themselves, that is why we help them. We have hope on behalf of them,” Miss Mokone explains. According to her, ARVs are also being used as a recreational drug – crushed and smoked.

Despite the daily challenges faced, the care workers remain upbeat about the people they are helping. They have developed a genuine rapport and trust with most of their clients, an affinity which helps them to serve their clients more effectively. “We have to help those living on the streets,” says Miss Mgwana. “If we don’t, what chance do they have?”