Senior U.S. government officials, led by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Michael O. Leavitt, visited Mercy Clinic in the Gauteng Province of South Africa yesterday, founded in 1988 by religious sisters from the Order of Mercy. The HHS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supports the Hope for Life HIV/AIDS Project at the clinic.
Sister Christine Jacobs, Administrator of Mercy Clinic, greeted Secretary Leavitt; the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Mark Dybul, M.D.; and the other officials, and provided a tour of the facilities, which include a number of centers that provide comprehensive, basic social, health, and education interventions at a single site to promote clients’ overall health and well-being. The clinic has 27 full-time, and five part-time, staff.
In 1997, realizing that HIV/AIDS was having a devastating impact on the community, Mercy Clinic expanded to encompass HIV awareness, education, and care. In 2004, the clinic received funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief through a grant to Catholic Relief Services to start the Hope for Life Project to provide treatment to people with HIV/AIDS. The anti-retroviral therapy (ART) clinic sees approximately 1,800 patients each month, in addition to the 130 clients who receive home-based care. There are currently 357 patients on ART at Mercy Clinic: 52 children, 92 males, and 213 females. A total of 1,225 patients are receiving HIV care.
Secretary Leavitt met with patients, their families, and their care-givers, and remarked afterwards on the extraordinary partnership between the local community and the American people that enables such programs to extend their reach.
The clinic’s program for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) also has funding from the Emergency Plan through a subgrant from Starfish. The OVC program staff receive training at the Heartbeat Center for Community Development in Nellmapius Township, which the U.S. delegation visited in the afternoon.
The Heartbeat Center provides basic social services to some of the more than 1.5 million children in South Africa under age 15 who have lost one or both of their parents, often because of HIV/AIDS. Heartbeat is a South African non-profit organization to empower orphans and vulnerable children to reach their full potential; its staff of 141 persons has reached over 6,000 OVCs. An example of public-private partnership, a major donor is Tiger Brands, which provides food parcels monthly to all the children.
The Emergency Plan contributes to the Heartbeat After-School Center to finance the psycho-social support program, the homework-supervision program, holiday camps, staff, and educational assistance. The Heartbeat/Nellmapius site currently has 210 OVCs registered for this project, ranging from two to 18 years. The Emergency Plan will also finance a drive to secure birth certificates and identity documents for orphans in the next year, and to obtain South Africa government social grants for these children, to increase their access to economic support, and to provide legal aid.
During the U.S. delegation’s visit, Secretary Leavitt gave board games and wooden toy cars to a group of children for the Heartbeat toy library.
