Where we work
The village of Hogsback falls within the Nkonkobe municipal area, with the Tyhume valley at the base of the Hogsback pass.
The HIV Hope Project / Themba Phohliso is focused on addressing the needs surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as it affects the mainly rural community in the Tyume Valley within the Nkonkobe Municipal district (with a total population of 430 000) in the Eastern Cape province.
Government health services for the whole municipal district include
several primary health care clinics, three community health centres and one
district hospital. Within this district, the community of the Tyume
valley is spread over 30 km between the village of Hogsback and the town
of Alice. This community is served by a private medical practice run by
Dr Norma van Niekerk in Hogsback, while the town of Alice has several
private practices.
None of the government health facilities provide any Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART) for patients suffering from HIV/AIDS. The closest point where ART is available from a government clinic is East London, which is 140 km from Hogsback. There is no way that financially poor patients can afford the transport costs to get the necessary treatment. Until the government health services are geared up to provide ART in these far-flung rural areas, the challenge of providing effective treatment to infected patients is largely in the hands of the relatively few private medical doctors.
The reality is that, with appropriate ART, the lives of many people
suffering from the disease can radically be changed for the better. This
is the challenge that the HIV Hope Project has accepted, particularly in
the Tyume valley below Hogsback.