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TB Care Association

TB Care provides a comprehensive, developmental social support service to TB sufferers and their families in the City of Cape Town. We operate from the community health centres.

Our community based TB care programme enables patients to take their daily treatment on the street where they live under the supervision of specially trained community treatment supporters. Our paediatric home based care project is an extension of this programme.

Patients in the workplace are supervised by colleagues who have been trained buy us.

We counsel TB patients and their families, provide nutrition for the destitute and run life skills programmes for patients.

Little Vuyo looks back helplessly, face pushed up against the bars of the steel cot. The two big brown eyes blink and two tears roll silently down the cheeks.

At 18 months he is too young to know why he has to be couped up in this cot day in and day out but he does know that he does not like it. He would rather be under his blanket securely tied to his  mother’s back where there is love, warmth and security.

Vuyo* is one of many children in Cape Town, South Africa who suffer from Tuberculosis.

Some have only TB and some have TB and AIDS.  TB is one of the biggest health problems facing us and the escalation of HIV/AIDS is exacerbating the situation.
The majority of the children admitted to the hospital have TB meningitis. If they do not receive proper care (medication and therapy) during the cure period there is a high risk of them developing  serious permanent disabilities.

Because there is no adequate care and support for the  these children in the community they have to be hospitalised for up to 8 months until they have recovered fully from their TB.

But at what cost to the child?

Children are most likely to be infected with TB  between 3 months and 6 years. This is also a crucial period in the development of a child.  Long periods of separation from the mother and the family during this time will have a detrimental effect on normal development which in turn could have far reaching consequences.

*Not his real name

“Take me Home where I belong”

is a TB Care Association project which aims to:

©  ensure that regular contact between mother and child is maintained while the child is in hospital.

©   reduce the period of hospitalisation from 8 months to 2 months in collaboration with the medical specialists at the hospital and the family at home.

©    put in place an effective community based

care and support programme  for the children and their mothers in partnership with the health service providers, the community and appropriate support organisations in the community.

How you could help children with TB and HIV!

© sponsor a mother’s transport to and from the  hospital once per week for a month.

©   sponsor a “care pack” (sanitary products for the HIV/AIDS children) or a  food pack for when the child is discharged. This will tide the mother over until she  links with the local clinic.

Contacts

116 Lawrence Road
ATHLONE 7764
CAPE TOWN

Telephone +27 21 697 5553

Fax+27 21 697 6998

Email rgrant@inds.co.za

Get your youth group to become involved in your community!