How the Methodist Church in Southern Africa supports people with Aids
27 November 2024
For World Aids Day, Thandeka Mchunu, Health, HIV/Aids and Substance Abuse Coordinator for the Methodist Church in Southern Africa (MCSA) wrote a blog to share the Aids situation in Southern Africa.
The Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA), has opened its places of worship to support treatment and care services to the local communities living with diabetes, hypertension, asthma, HIV and other chronic conditions, both communicable diseases, and non-communicable diseases.
This is in response to the government of South Africa’s Programme, called Centralized Chronic Medication Distribution Dispensing (CCMDD).
This Programme was devised from The Department of Health, and the aim is to use community-based treatment collection points which will provide relief in accessibility of treatment for people who are on chronic medication and the hospitals or clinics are not easily accessible. The MCSA, through this initiative, has brought treatment to the people.
The MCSA Clarkebury District through the Health Desk has 6 fully operational CCMDD Points – informally known as EPUPs and it is important to note that these pick-up points are not only open to Methodist People.
These pick-up points which serve to:
- Address accessibility to Chronic medication with great ease
- Promote Wellness
- Assist in the decongestion of public health facilities
- Encouraging Healing and Transformation
Services
- Render all Pick-Up Point services for the CCMDD program
- Receive and store Medication for distribution
- Maintain all required medical and personal records of patients
Funding Landscape
- Funding from the Catholic Relief Services 2021-2022 – This was project initiation and running for a fixed term
- Funding from 2023-2024 – Mission Unit Health Desk applications
- TB HIV Care – local funding
- Pula Fund – MCSA internal funding
- Love in a Box 2023 – Methodist Church in Britain funding
The program has largely contributed to curbing the HIV/AIDS defaulter and initiation to treatment rate in the OR Tambo District.
In the Holy Gospel’s Book Luke 5:31, we are taught that: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” the MCSA has graciously opened its doors to the community to serve as the doctor to the people of Christ, further displaying that we are one body.
A prayer from Thandeka
God of the forsaken and forgotten, who seeks out the lost, and gathers the fearful into welcoming arms, remove from us the pride that refuses to see others as our equals. Take away the distinctions by which we claim some are worthy and others can be ignored. Defeat the selfishness that demands we, and those like us, get better choices, while others are left behind.
Give us new eyes for seeing the injustice you see, new ears for hearing the cries arising for help, new energy for doing your will, so that no one living with HIV remains forsaken, and no one, regardless of their origin or status, stays forgotten by those who have what they need.
God of life; You have given us the tools to end HIV. Fill us with the energy to find the means to use them, So that this disease, which has killed and hurt for over forty years, might finally end.
The crosses once adorned with red ribbons, might no longer mark the dread of this disease. But be released to proclaim unencumbered the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, through whom we are set free, now and to eternity.
Amen.