For eight years, Nutombi, who worked in a health organization in Johannesburg, helped careers to tell their HIV positive children about the disease. It ensured that the children remained on the medicines that suppressed the virus. She went to her patients’ homes to get any food and financial support she needed.
But then, one day at the end of January, he was told that he was immediately. It is to stop your work. Its patients did not have the opportunity to explain what was happening, try to connect them to other suppliers, or say goodbye.
The Nutombi employer was widely provided with the US HIV/AIDS program. On that day, the Trump administration announced that foreign aid recipients would have to stop their efforts when it reviewed.
Now, when Nutombi operates through the clinic where she worked, she looks at the types of patients she helped to stand in a long queue. Earlier, HIV’s children were dedicated to the carers of HIV, so they didn’t have to wait to see. He has heard from workers at the clinic that the patients who were helping are asking where he and his companions have gone, and that some careists have stopped bringing their children for appointments.
“It hurts me, it really hurts me,” said Natombie, who asked her not to identify her kin. “Knowing that they feel that we are not there, they can’t see us, they are watching people who do not know their background anymore.”
Since the Trump administration began to abolish the US foreign aid system in its early days – which was launched as temporarily frozen, but the large -scale cancellation of foreign aid contracts – most of the reason for this is due to the fact that this is due to the cause of this and its death. They are expected to die. Tuberculosis, and HIV.
But the administration’s actions were also a huge, sudden holiday of health workers like Natombby around the world-most of them in the Saharan Africa. The US Agency for International Development and specific programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, funded organizations that developed doctors and nurses, program managers, and social workers staff. They worked on nutrition programs, helped mothers safe pregnancy and birth, and tried to protect people from diseases. They ensured that patients helped appointments, torture people, and offered psychological support, as well as cures the diseases.
Now, they are out of work at a time when US -backed NGOs have eliminated large -scale or closed jobs, not sure where to approach such a position that will continue to work in the fields where they have dedicated their career. They are worried about what will happen to the people they used to help, and about their future.
While on Tuesday a federal judge vowed that USAID had to end Possibly unconstitutional And ordered that the agency’s operations be partially restored, it is not clear what its effect on these workers, if any, how it may have. Most of the agency’s manpower and agreements were already abolished.
“I loved my job, I was a big part of my life, which worked with the survivors in the South African Empoming Province. Like Netombby and some other people, he also spoke on the condition that his full name would not be used, with some fear that his comments could be affected in the future.
“They trusted us, they knew where they needed to go when they needed help,” he said. “If we are not in the field, who will advocate them?”
Many health workers said they are bread in their family, often not only supports their children and elderly parents, but also support their siblings and growing relatives. He described himself as extremely committed to his fields, often invested new skills and in the Graduate Graduate programs or special training for better patients. Now they were wondering how they could afford school fees, accommodation and car, and even food.
“I have dedicated my entire career to public health, HIV prevention and youth advocacy,” said Jimmy Cesinglando, who worked in HIV programs in Uganda. “The lack of funding has eliminated my financial stability.”
“If you look at my curriculum Vita, it’s HIV, HIV, HIV, HIV,” said Okoli Chadira Goodfrey, who focused on HIV efforts in Nigeria, working with groups like men who had sex with men. “I feel like I have to start from the beginning.
Edison said, “Of course I care about myself, but we have the people we are helping,” said Edison, who was a program manager at an organization in Uganda, working with sex workers, drug users and other groups who are more at risk of HIV. “People are dying, people are going to contract with HIV, people are going to get TB infection, STI infection, all this.”
Some health workers said they were receiving calls from people with whom they used to work, who are desperate to help and ask where they went.
“You are leaving these survivors exactly the same way,” said Lorenia, a colleague of Zanhali, who works on gender -based violence in South Africa. “We have just lost everything for which we have worked hard.
While the reduction in foreign aid, the Trump administration has said that fewer programs do not meet national interests. Administration officials, including President Trump, have also said that US foreign aid is suffering from fraud and corruption.
Many health workers interviewed, who said they did not make mistakes to the United States if they wanted to reduce its financial support levels for international aid. He also said that he hoped his own countries would increase their support locally.
But he said that the sudden deductions that suddenly came into force – there was no warning or time with alternative plans – he made the situation so worse for his patients and personally.
“You have a salary you have to fix the house and to work to do it.” This was not a process.
One morning, the nurse said, “Even before he kept his clothes for work, what happened before.”
The nurse noted that he was in a better position than many other people with whom he worked. With her experience, she was able to select shifts in hospitals. But in many countries, healthcare systems do not work like health advisers. It was only NGOs who had staff.
When former Maloo Saming patients call him, they instruct them to serve the services that are still available. But a nurse working in the Johannesburg area does not tell them about the struggles they are now facing – how to help their mother, and pay her residence and car – and instead just say that these things occur.
“Some of them look at us as well as HIV -positive adolescents, as well as HIV -positive adolescents, as well as HIV -positive adolescents,” said Samong, “Some of them look at us.” “If I have lost hope, then where will they get their strength, I will not tell them that I am just a front.”
Samong added, though, she could not visit the clinics where she worked.
He said, “I would literally cry.” “I don’t want to expose myself with this kind of pain.”
