I was given the opportunity to spend the day going door to door with the caregivers of Mdumbi Home Based Care this past week. What an eye opening experience that was! It was amazing and eye openning for me to be able to see into the lives of the people of the community in which we are working.
From this experience I was able to see first hand the work that the caregivers are doing everyday. This gives me a better idea of how to add quality to their program. One thing I noticed about the Mdumbi group is that they seem to be working more as social workers, than healthcare workers. Many of the homes that we visited were those of orhpans or vulnerable children (OVCs) and we talked to the guardians about how to get foster care grants and how best to care for the children. While we did see some patients with medical problems, such as TB or chronic pain, I saw more counselling being done than hands on patient care.
The ability to counsel clients and direct them to the appropriate services are definate strengths, however these strengths need to be built upon with other forms of care, such as bathing patients and treating minor medical issues as there is a high need of these forms of care in their community.
A couple of images from the day:
Nosiseko has been counselling this tata in how to care for his 2 orphaned grandchildren who have come to live with him. She is helping him to get a Foster Care grant and teaching him important things about caring for children.
This Mama lives alone and had no one to care for her when she was released from the hospital after being treated for TB so Ntombifikile visits her every day and cooks and cleans for her and gives her a bath.
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