The Community Home Based Care Programme assists chronically ill patients with nursing and medical care, counselling, social welfare assistance and pastoral support. Some of the projects are supporting surviving families and orphans with welfare, or assisting them with seed capital for starting small-scale income generating projects.
Aims of the HBC Programme
The HBC programme works towards achieving three main aims:
- Enhancing community development through encouraging community participation and responsibility for health care.
- Providing better integrated care for the physical, psychological and spiritual needs of the chronically ill, especially focusing on HIV/AIDS patients and their families.
- Preventing the spread of HIV infection through promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS infection and control.
Beneficiaries
The HBC projects attend to clients in a non-discriminating fashion, reaching out regardless of age, sex, religious background, tribe or social status.
The primary beneficiary is the chronically ill patient. The programme selects those who are symptomatic of HIV/AIDS, or who are suffering from TB, stroke and cancer. The care of these patients is suited to trained community volunteers, unlike other chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and asthmas, which require more specialised projects only register chronically ill patients from the above categories.
Secondary beneficiaries of the programme are:
the primary care-giver, usually a family member, who is supported in the task of caring for the patient; the patient’s family who may be supported with counselling, welfare, improvement in hygiene, and nutrition; at-risk family members who are given access to confidential counselling and HIV/AIDS prevention information.
