Where is the hope?

Yesterday, we experienced arguably the worst symptom of AIDS--hopelessness. You could see it in the patients' faces. Even scarier you could see it in the health care providers' faces. It has got to be one of the cruelest diseases there is, not because of what it does to your body, but because of what it does to your soul. It never goes away, and always spreads. Yes there are amazing drugs that treat HIV/AIDS but nothing cures it. Nothing gets rid of it. Most of these patients have been coming to this clinic, waiting in the overcrowded double-wide trailer for hours, and getting grilled by healthcare professionals on taking their medicine, improving their lifestyle habits, and coming back here next time, every two months since the clinic opened roughly in 2005, and they know they must keep doing that until they die. There is no end. There is no victory. There is no hope. AIDS attacks the most intimate of relationships as well. The HIV positive husband explaining himself to his HIV negative wife. The HIV positive mother explaining herself to her HIV positive son who wants to know why they have to see the doctor and take these pills all the time.

And the health care professionals can't win either. They first start working, excited to take on one of the most difficult epedemics in the history of modern medicine, and by now they have nothing left. They have seen no progress, there is more AIDS than can be treated, and they see newly infected patients every day. Best estimates are that 1 out of 10 people in South Africa are infected with HIV. But there are population groups, like Letlhabile, where closer to 1 out of 2 people have AIDS, 50%. Unbelievable! Where is the hope in that? So the doctors and clinic managers just show up, punch the time clock, and get through the day, trying to emotionally engage with the circumstances as little as possible so they can have some sort of normal life when they get back home. For these people it is just a job, and they don't care if things aren't run smoothly, or if patient files are incomprehensible, or if there are 50 people sittimg in the grass outside the clinic for 3 hours before they are seen. They don't care because at this point they can't care.