Tsipotwi Tinovimba Home Care Centre

The hospice comprises two self-contained houses and is situated on a Tea Estate in Chipinge in S.E. Zimbabwe, close to Mozambique. The properties cater for the terminally ill who find themselves homeless and desperate.

The need for the hospice arose as a result of the fundamental breakdown in traditional social structures caused primarily by the AIDs pandemic.

Normally in this culture when someone becomes ill they travel to their traditional home, Kumusha, to be cared for by relatives. Unfortunately this is no longer an option for many.

As a result of AIDs most families are already over extended. The result of people dying from AIDs, generally in the most productive age range, is that extended families are left having to look after large numbers of either old or very young relatives, and they simply cannot cope.

Some of the sick men feel they are the ones who are supposed to be financially supporting those at Kumusha, and are simply too embarrassed to go home. Recently we have had young mothers being sent back to their parents, a practise hitherto unheard of in traditional culture once the bride price, or Lobola, has been paid.

It has taken nearly a year to construct the hospice and such was the need our first patients started to arrive before the foundations were dug. As the centre is in the grounds of the clinic, which has two wards, we were allowed to temporarily use their building, which only further highlighted the desperate need for the hospice to be completed. There was little privacy in the wards of the clinic and death was seldom dignified.

Surviving children and loved ones were often traumatised by the lack of opportunity to complete their parting appropriately.

It is traditional practice that a patient is nursed by a member of the family, so each patient usually has a relative nurse them, cutting the cost of nursing staff and providing the opportunity for a family to remain physically close together in the final weeks of an individual’s life. As a patient deteriorates, nurses are always there to offer assistance and guidance.

We have trained counsellors; Angela, Regina and Charles.

Angela, a volunteer and local teacher, is HIV+, having lived with the virus for eight years.

Charles is a welfare officer. A wonderful worker with children and the men, who are generally reluctant to talk openly with women.

Regina is Charles’ wife and she helps with the babies, showing grandmothers how to sterilise bottles and helps them to make up feeds (we use soya formula). She also provides a support system for the elderly who often find themselves in the position of being responsible for the new extended family.