Holy Cross Hospice

Providing quality care and support to people living with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers since 1994.

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About Holy Cross Hospice

Our History

The rapid number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Botswana has strained the capacity of local hospitals to provide quality care. As a result, the burden of care for both those infected and affected by HIV falls on their family and community members. Those family members find their resources similarly stretched thin, and often lack the training and skills necessary to care for their terminally ill relatives.

Holy Cross Hospice began as a community outreach of the Cathedral Parish of the Anglican Church in Gaborone in 1994, in an effort to offer care and support to families of the terminally ill. A single Australian nurse, supported by the Anglican Church, registered the Holy Cross Hospice as a non-governmental agency with the Botswana ministry of Labor. She began to visit local hospitals, asking staff to refer terminally ill patients to her personal telephone. She borrowed cars from friends to visit the clients' homes along with one social worker. Eventually, they and one hundred volunteers trained the Johannesburg hospice, and began to visit families throughout Gaborone.

As the number of patients increased, the Hospice built the Loratong Day Centre in 1995. Twice a week, a staff member picked up terminally ill patients from their home. She brought them to Loratong, which means "where there is love" in Setswana, where they receieved two meals each day. In 2003, that number increased to four times a week.

Many clients who came to the Day Care Centre, however, had no place to leave their small children. Other children in the neighborhoods whose parents had died lived with grandparents and other relatives unable to provide for them. In 2000, the Hospice developed a preschool program for children ages three to six. The children receive two meals, structured classroom time, and counseling as necessary. Throughout the year, staff members and volunteers organize camps and events for the children, including a Christmas party held by the Anglican Cathedral youth group and a summer camp at Mokolodi.

2007 will be a year full of changes for Holy Cross Hospice. A new director, two new building projects and a new consitution have helped position the hospice to be an example of palliative care and OVC work to the entire sub-Saharan Africa region.

Our communities

Holy Cross Hospice serves four of Gaborone's hardest-hit areas: Old Naledi, Gaborone Central, Gaborone West, and Broadhurst. Old Naledi, the poorest township of Gaborone, is home to about 12,000 people, the majority of whom live below the poverty line. IRIN, a UN news service, describes the challenge of working in these areas (see article).

HIV/AIDS in Africa

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome), has caused 25 million deaths in the last twenty-five years, nearly two-thirds of those in southern Africa. 4 million more people will be infected this year, and the year after that, and the year after that. By destroying the cells in a person's immune system that protect it from disease, the virus leaves its host vulnerable to scores of other infections. Malaria, tuberculosis, and even more basic illnesses become opportunistic killers.

Outside of the body, HIV/AIDS affects communities in much the same way. By attacking often the healthiest and most productive members of communities, it leaves those communities open to equally dangerous ailments: ruptured families, poverty, and famine. Those living with HIV suffer physically, but everyone around them - employers, family, friends, neighbors - are affected.

In 2006, UNAIDS published a comprehensive Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, which outlines the global AIDS situation. Click here to view the report. UNAIDS also has publications on a broad range of specific HIV/AIDS topics, which can be downloaded here.

Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)

In many places, those most affected and least able to cope with the effects of HIV/AIDS are the children whose parents or family members are living with HIV, whose parents have opened their homes to other children orphaned by AIDS, or who have been orphaned themselves. According to the United Nations Children's Fund, 12.3 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost a parent to HIV/AIDS. African family networks, which for centuries absorbed such children, have been overwhelmed by the AIDS pandemic.

Children on the Brink, published jointly by UNICEF, UNAIDS and USAID in 2004, details the situation of orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. The Framework for the Protection, Care and Support of OVC, published in the same year by UNAIDS and UNICEF, provides a framework for those seeking to address OVC issues.

Palliative Care

In recent years, medical experts have tuned in to the benefit of palliative care for patients with terminally ill diseases. Palliative care (also called end-of-life care) includes pain reduction, pyschosocial support for patients and families, and treatment of opportunistic infetions. To learn more about palliative care, download this UNAIDS report or click here to browse the resources published by The Work Continues, a foundation established in memory of Princess Diana.

The struggle with HIV/AIDS

Botswana, a landlocked country the size of France located in the heart of sub-Saharan Africa, struggles with one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world, with prevelance rate between a quarter and a third of the adult population. The Ecumenical HIV/AIDS Initiative in Africa has put together a survey both of Botswana history, its HIV/AIDS information and the state of its response (see EHAIA website here).