Online Reporter
Robin Muchetu in Gutu, Masvingo
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care, together with the National Aids Council (NAC) have been successfully implementing moonlight HIV testing or night clinics where they extend health services beyond normal working hours to sex workers, artisanal miners and other key populations who need these essential services.
Sister Farirai Dambwara, a midwife and Key Populations (KP) nurse at Gutu Rural Hospital, gave an insight as to how they conduct their sessions and their importance.
Central to these sessions is the role of peer educators who reach out to the key populations to ensure they have all the necessary information about clinic days.
“We work with KPs, we facilitate night clinics each quarter. These are characterised by visits to the communities where these people are found from 6pm to 10pm. We have counsellors, nurses and we are assisted by our partners too.
“We have peer educators who are a big part of the exercises as they mobilise the beneficiaries in the community. They go to the sex workers and inform them of the date that the night clinic will be on so that they can avail themselves,” said Sr Dambwara.
The night clinics are characterised by treatment of various Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), family planning services, cancer screening and issuing of medication. HIV testing and counselling are also an integral part of the night clinics. All services that are offered in the main clinic are uprooted and brought to the community’s doorsteps.
Why night clinics?
Night clinics are used by the service providers to reach other populations that do not come to the health centre regularly and need services brought to them because of the nature of their work.
“Usually we do these night outreaches because we have target groups that do not have time to come to the clinic during the day so we follow them where they are. We have hotspot areas too that we take those services to, here in Gutu we have areas like Chomski, Bhasera, Zoma and Runyowa areas where we see the KPs and we give them services,” said Sr Dambwara.
The key benefits of the night clinics are that it has proven to help reduce the spread of HIV, unplanned pregnancies and STIs for the KPs.
“The night clinics also assist in empowering the sex workers to seek medication in time, we do not want them to spend a lot of time in the community with infections. Peer educators help identify those who do not want to come to the hospital during the day and they bring them at night because they do not want to be exposed because of the nature of their work,” she said.
She added that the role of the peer educators cannot be over-emphasised as they aid hospital staff to identify people who need help within the communities owing to their work.
“We have public and private peer educators in the district, the public ones go even to bars where they fish out sex workers and give them information about services and when they will be visiting the community. The private ones are found in the communities, too. When the sex workers come to the hospital for any services, they are treated with respect, they access services and they go, they are not discriminated. The advantage is that everything is free, even when they come to the hospital too so this ensures that they adhere to their HIV medication and to always be treated for STIs,” she added.
Men are also included in the night clinics.
“Sex workers leave Gutu and go as far as Zoma looking for artisanal miners who are also found in the evenings when they emerge from their mining activities. So we wait for them and treat them when they are out and their turnout is high because they do not come to health institutions generally,” added Sr Dambwara.
Peer educators who take part in imparting health information to sex workers are also former sex workers and some who are still in the trade but have acquired skills to help them train their peers.
Ms Sophia Gore* (not her real name) is a sex worker and a peer educator at the same time under the KP programme in Gutu district, who said they help other KPs to seek health services.
“Our job is to mobilise beneficiaries in the community, we get a case load of 20 at a time. We monitor and track the KPs and have two educational sessions a month and we send reports back to NAC. We choose various topics to discuss and it can be anything like adherence, STI’s or even Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT), we do these sessions. During that time, we also distribute condoms because we want these women to protect themselves and their clients from HIV infection,” she said.
They praised the Ministry of Health and Child Care, together with NAC for ensuring adequate supplies of ARVs, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis.
“Because of the good services rendered by the health workers, we even refer our peers to visit the institution or night clinics and get help, we are not discriminated against and we get to protect ourselves as they are also willing to hear our stories and give us help. We also inform them if there is an outbreak of STIs and they quickly host night clinics and the larger population is served,” she added.
She said while she is older, she still practices the trade as it is the only profession she has known.
“Our role is to motivate the young sex workers to protect themselves from STIs and HIV. We need to equip them with adequate information regarding their health so that we do not see the spread of HIV. We also offer counselling services to the young women,” she said. — @NyembeziMu.
