Sisters Help Address the HIV/AIDS Pandemic in South Africa

Sister Vicky worked as a physician in the antiretroviral clinic seeing and dispensing medications to thirty or more HIV/AIDS patients a day in the village of Senwamokgope. An important part of the care in the clinic was the counseling and education about the disease and the need for follow-up visits.

Sister Elaine utilized her skills as a nurse practitioner by screening patients at the antiretroviral clinic and making home care visits with the care-takers. She also helped prepare and distribute food to the Zimbabwean refugees at the parish homeless shelter, and traveled throughout local townships handing out food packages. Nutritious packs consisted of soy beans, peanut butter, oil, sugar, salt coffee or tea and a powdery corn based substance called “maize”, a staple of South Africa.

The very poor live in townships where you find houses made from corrugated tin, or mud bricks with grass or tin roofs. Most of the homes in the townships do not have water or electricity. Residents must dig their own “borehole” (well) for water and if they dig the trenches the government will provide electrical connections which they can use a pre-paid card system to receive electricity. Often you find people cooking over an open fire to prepare their meals.

A rising political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe has sent an estimated two million people into neighboring South Africa. Many young boys go to South Africa hoping to get work. Our Lady of Peace parish in Makhado (Louis Trichardt) opened a shelter for young boys. When Fr. Frank Gallagher, MSC, the pastor, was successful in getting 14 of these boys into local schools, they were so happy and proud in their new school uniforms and backpacks that were paid for by the parishioners.  These boys help with preparing and serving the meals for the men’s shelter every day.

Sister Elaine and Sister Vicky found the villagers warm, gracious and very resourceful. No conversation was started without this common greeting for all, “Hello, how are you?” With the response, “I’m fine, and how are you?”

They were particularly moved by the number of South Africans who take in “orphans,” children who have lost one or both parents due to AIDS. Each year there are 70,000 new orphans and by the end of 2010 it was projected that there would be 20 million orphans. The majority of orphaned children are deeply impoverished facing inadequate nutrition and poor access to education and health care.

After fulfilling her first mission in South Africa, Sister Vicky returned to the United States, where she serves as a hospice and palliative care physician within the Bon Secours Health System in Richmond, Virginia. Sister Elaine has also returned to her ministry in Marriottsville, Md. as the Director of Formation where she guides young women preparing to become Sisters of Bon Secours. She also works part time as a nurse practitioner at a clinic for Spanish speaking people who are immigrants and at a clinic for those who are homeless.

After their time in South Africa, both sisters have a very special sense of the meaning of their call to provide “Good Help to Those in Need” and the gift that these acts of love and concern bring to them as Sisters of Bon Secours.