Holy Cross Hospice

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

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programmes : home-based /

day care / youth / our future

Home-Based Care

Medical Care

The Hospice has four nurses who provide home-based care, working in conjunction with local clinics. The nurses educate clients about their medication regimens and healthy lifestyles, crucial to the success of antiretroviral therapy. Upon registration with the Hospice, volunteer doctors evaluate the clients. Once periodic evaluations show that a client's health has improved, he or she is discharged by the nurses and volunteer doctor.

Psychological and Social Support

Two social workers do counseling and offer psycho-social support to clients and their families. They network with social workers from clinics and help clients to access important social services, including food baskets.

Adult Day Care

Loratong, Setswana for "where there is love," operates four days a week. Our hospice drivers transport clients, their children and neighborhood orphans to and from the hospice each day. In all, twenty clients and fifty orphans receive a nutritious breakfast and lunch, in addition to the thirty home-based clients. The number of plates served is approximately 665 per week, over 30,000 per year. While at Loratong, clients also receive physiotherapy, counseling and medical attention from our social workers, nurses and volunteers.

Care of Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children (OVC) and Bana ba Naledi

When it began in 1995, Loratong served adults living with HIV/AIDS and other terminal illnesses. Many of our clients brought their preschool children however, and in response Holy Cross created our preschool and OVC programme shortly thereafter. Today, as more and more children are orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, the need for community-based OVC care has trebled. In response, the hospice will be building and OVC centre in Old Naledi called Bana ba Naledi, "child of the star."

After a teen pregnancy prevention workshop in 2004, the Hospice recognized the need for structured activities for teenagers and youth, which make up a majority of the population in high population, low resource communities of Gaborone. With the help of funding from the the US-based PACT program, Holy Cross Hospice in 2006 began an after-school program to serve the youth of Old Naledi, a nearby neighborhood. Four days a week, youth ages 7-18 come together to learn traditional dance and drama, marimba (large, traditional xylophones) inside a church in Old Naledi. On Saturdays, they participate in sporting and aerobic activities.

Bana ba Naledi Orphan Centre

In the next three years, Holy Cross Hospice will be expanding dramatically, in response to the growing number of clients and children coming to the day care centre. First, we will begin this year construction of an orphan centre in Old Naledi, called Bana ba Naledi, "Child of the Star." With the help of the UK-based foundation Crusaid and the Anglican cathedral, Holy Cross has raised over p900,000 to construct the centre, which will serve 100 orphans and vulnerable children in the Old Naledi area. The centre will include both a preschool and a day care.

Tlokweng Residential Hospice

Second, we have begun planning of a residential hospice at Tlokweng, about 10 kilometers southeast of Gaborone. The thirty-bed hospice will serve three populations: those just released from local hospitals but not well enough to go home (called step-down care); patients whose caregivers need short-term breaks (respite care); and lastly those in the final stages of AIDS and other terminal illnesses (palliative care). The residential hospice, being planned with help from the Ministry of Health, will be the first of its kind in Botswana.