Lucy

Lucy Opeabea is a 40 year old woman living with AIDS in Ghana. She found out she was HIV positive about 5 years ago. Initially she did not tell anyone, but then she started developing symptoms and became ill. She was kicked out of her own house and no one from the family wanted to have anything to do with her.

Her 3 children have also abandoned her upon warnings and threats from their father.

Lucy has suffered a lot from various opportunistic infections,inclucing oral thrush, chest infections and gastroenteritis. Currently she only weighs 88 lbs. Her condition has been deteriorating quickly. She has gone on anti-retrovirals purchased from the physician's personal finances, but the clinic physician can't afford this on a long term basis. Currently she has severe boils on her right ear. The whole ear and jaw are swollen. She is in constant pain. She has been on various antibiotics but none helped. However, after buying a culture test, the clinic now knows what to give her.

She needs flucloxacilline which is very expensive and the clinic cannot afford to buy it without our help. Fortunately, with about $150 in medicines and treatment she should be back on her way to a full recovery and can hopefully be well enough to see her children again.

Samuel

Samuel Asiemah is a 50 year old HIV positive man who was thrown out of his house by his family. He ended up on the streets. He started sleeping outside the clinic when he had severe gastroenteritis. He was visiting the toilet 15 to 20 times a day. The physician didn't think Samuel would live, but his strong spirit and personality kept him going and started responding to treatment. Today he is even taking part in the beads project.

Ever since his admission here he has never had a visit from any family member even though they have been contacted by the clinic. This means that he lives at the clinic at the moment but once he is on his feet again he will able to regain his life.

Gladys

Gladys Akweley Ackam is a 40 year old woman who found out she was HIV positive about 3 years ago. Her husband who first tested positive admitted to her that he had an extra marital relationship. He died a year ago and the girlfriend also died shortly after him. He has 4 children with his wife and had 3 children with the girlfriend. After their death, his wife has taken the responsibility of taking care of her 4 children and the 3 of her husband's ex-girlfriend. The age of the children ranges from 6 to 12 years.

All 7 children are home because she cannot afford to send them to school. She finds it very difficult to even give them a simple meal because of her condition. She had her CD4 count done which is below 250, which means that she needs to begin anti-HIV treatment right away. This is also a problem because she says she will find it very difficult to sustain payments of 50,000 cedis a month as she is not working. She used to have a mushroom farm, she was into bee keeping, grass cutter rearing and snail rearing. Everything collapsed when she started falling ill.

Today she says what she is looking for is help to assist her go back to her mushroom and probably one of the other things she is used to so she will be able to sustain looking after herself but also the children. What I have been able to do so far is to get them on the food rations programme, so they are assisted in getting wheat, soya bean and cooking oil, enough for the whole family every two weeks.

HEP would like to send $250 to Gladys to get her medications, assist her in returning to her mushroom farm and enabling her to support herself and the 7 children.

Emmanuel

Emmanuel Anango is also living with HIV and comes from the Upper West Region in Ghana-about 18 hours away from the clinic. There is currently no HIV/AIDS treatment in that region. He heard about the clinic through word of mouth and was determined to endure the long bus ride to get here.

He is educated and is an electrician. He once used to own an electrical shop but had to sell most of his equipment when he had to raise money to treat himself.

He discovered that his condition was deteriorating when he got covered with skin rashes. He therefore decided to see if he could be helped to go on anti-retrovirals. Getting sicker and sicker, he sold his remaining possessions and made it to the clinic in Accra. He has been at the clinic for 5 weeks now with all room board and treatment being provided at no cost.

He was able to begin his HIV treatment last week but due to the process in which the drugs are given out and his need to regain his health, he will have to spend at least another 2 months at the clinic before he returns to home. He is determined that when he is well again, he will start working so he will be able to sustain his treatment.

Emmanuel's treatment at the clinic will run about $250 including a years supply of anti-retrovirals. Your support will enable him to return to his job and regain the life he once had.

Haijara

Haijara Alimatu's husband died last year. It was after his death she found out that she was also carrying HIV. Although she looked very healthy, her CD4 count was below 100 and was put on ART. She is doing fine and continues to work very hard to take care of the 5 children whom she is now solely responsible for since her husband died. She makes koko (porridge) and sells these for daily income to be able to look after the kids.

She lives in a house that was built by her husband’s family with lots of other family members. The clinic physician writes: "She is a northerner and as much as I hate it they have certain customs that deprives women of many things."

A severe thunderstorm recently swept away the roofing sheet of the building. She now has no roof above her head. She has managed to move the children and herself to another room in the house but she is under pressure from the other residents to leave.

We would like to help Haijara rebuild her roof and continue on her anti-retroviral therapy so she can be healthy and her 5 children will be taken care of.

Irene

Irene Ofori is a 22 year old girl who got pregnant while in junior high school. Unfortunately she also got infected with HIV. She was thinking of getting an abortion. Through counseling, she decided to keep her child. Her mother, however, was extremely upset by this and started turning Irene away (because of her HIV). Elizabeth and she had it very difficult.

Naa Ashiley, the clinic's physician, writes:

She would visit me and tell me whilst crying that her mother had thrown a cup away that she had drunk from. She had asked her not to use the bathroom etc. After a while Irene even stopped coming to see me too. Just last month she came back after 10 months with her new born baby that is now almost 2 months old. She told me that after it got out of hand at home, she went to the village where she carried firewood and palmnut all through her pregnancy just to make some money to keep her alive. She was able to come back to Accra and deliver at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital where she received Niverapine as a means of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Her daughter is doing well. The only sad thing is that due to the fact that she cannot breast feed she gives the baby koko (corn porridge) which she has been doing ever since the baby was born. The child has never had milk before because she cannot afford baby formula.

I managed to get her some few tins of baby food and asked her to try and come on a monthly basis for check ups. Initially she was reluctant because she said the trip costs her in and out 45,000 cedis which she does not have. I have told her that I will pay for the trips. The other difficult part is that she is now living at the village with an aunt who does not know she is HIV positive. When the baby is crying she is asked to give the breast which of course she can’t so she hides in the room and pretends she is giving the breast. In the night it is more difficult because they all sleep in one room.

HEP is committed to assisting Irene with her medicines and baby formula as well as providing ongoing support for her family situation.

Kofe

Kofi Salia is a 5 year old boy. One day Eddie (the clinic director) went on a visit and found the boy's father complaing to his boss about a sore that would not go away. They had been to a traditional healer but now the wound was getting worse. Eddie had them bring the boy and was so disturbed by what he saw that he decided to bring the boy all the way to Accra, first to our clinic.The right leg was swollen and was about 4 times the size of the left one. The poor boy suffered a lot. Any time you neared his bed, he would start screaming out of fear.

All through his treatments there have been ups and downs. Strong antibiotics, surgery, drips, and blood transfusions-all of which are very expensive. Especially for his parents who are very poor.

He still needs lots of medication and help and although we are not sure if his leg will be amputated we want to do all we can to make sure that it was not because of lack of funds that a 5 year old boy lost his leg.   

We would like to raise $2,000 to help these 7 Ghanains. Your help is greatly needed.

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