Helderberg Hospice offers a new free service to the community.
We are now able to offer Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT). This is a test to determine a client’s HIV status.
The test takes 20 to 30 minutes and is completely confidential. The only people involved are the counsellor who does the pre and post test counselling and the sister who does the test. The client will be informed of their status and is under no obligation to disclose this to anyone.
The counselling addresses what needs to be done after the client has been tested. The Hospice Home Based Care staff has been trained in VCT, taking on this task and their field of expertise is HIV patient care in the community.
We are very excited to be involved in this health promotion and feel we are moving on from the days when we were just caring for dying AIDS patients to now being able to intervene and hopefully make a difference to the people who want to know and be responsible for their status, whether they are HIV positive or negative.
