Personnel experiences of AIDS patient management : clinic in Nelson Mandela Municipality, Eastern Cape

Abstract

Healthcare personnel are the first point of contact for ill people at adequately resourced healthcare facilities. Accordingly, the main purpose of this qualitative study was to explore, describe and analyse the role, experiences and capacity of health personnel in the prevention, treatment and management of HIV and AIDS patients at Laetitia Bam Community Health Centre in Kwa-Nobuhle Township, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality (Eastern Cape Province). This qualitative study was conducted at Laetitia Bam Community Health Centre with ten healthcare personnel working at the same centre. They comprised two medical doctors; four professional nurses working in HIV patient management; one pharmacist; one dietician and two counsellors at Laetitia Bam healthcare professionals; all of whom were part of the final sample of ten. Non-probability convenience sampling was opted for in the selection of the ten healthcare personnel, based on the researcher’s knowledge of, and familiarity with the research environment, the variability of the participant category; as well as her own pre-determined criteria or requirements for cases or people/ individuals that may be involved in the study. In this qualitative study, the thematically oriented and interpretative phenome logical analysis (IPA) of data was utilised. Five main themes and 17 sub-themes (categories) were generated as the study’s critical evidential framework. These themes relate to HIV/AIDS management; activities to decrease the burden of HIV/AIDS management; HIV/ AIDS programme/ service implementation; and impact on performance, impact on human resources. Based on both the main findings and conclusions, the study has proposed recommendations for improvements in the realm of human resource, infrastructure and financial resources development; as well as concomitant recommendations for future research.