By William Mbangula
Oshakati
About 150 volunteers received home-based care training sponsored by the Ugandan-headquartered Africa Palliative Care Association (APCA).
The one-week training, facilitated by the Catholic Aids Action (CAA), is the first of its kind in Namibia, according to a source dealing with the HIV/Aids pandemic.
Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of terminally ill patients and their families.
The Rehoboth (Hardap Region) and Anamulenge (Omusati) offices have been chosen as the pilot project for the APCA initiative to integrate it into the home-based family care programmes.
Fifty volunteers from the Hardap Region and 150 from Omusati Region were identified to undergo intensive training.
A survey was carried out at these sites to collect baseline information on current services provided, and it was recorded palliative care was a component necessary to improve services.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony at Okatana, CAA Coordinator for Omusati and Oshana regions, Efraim Iipinge, said his organisation was committed to the fight against HIV/Aids through home-based care.
Through such efforts, CAA and its associates have learned that volunteers and people affected and infected by the pandemic face serious problems.
These are, among many others, getting clients to talk openly about their illness with relatives; making households understand death at different stages of illness; comforting the dying to accept their departure and to provide relief from severe pain to them during their last illness stage.
The occasion was attended by the Director of APCA Jenny Hunt, who is based in Kampala, Uganda, and Charity Kawadza, the trainer from Island Hospice in Zimbabwe.