 What We Do
Philanjalo's work falls into two main categories humanitarian efforts and scientific research.
HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS
 The cornerstone of Philanjalo is an in-patient unit providing palliative nursing care and
professional supervision for the initiation of anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy in HIV patients too sick
to start therapy at home and those needing close monitoring during treatment
initiation (e.g. low CD4 counts, neurological complications, co-infections, or organ
failure).
The care center serves as a step-down facility for the nearby Church of
Scotland Hospital (COSH), helping to free-up valuable bed space in the
COSH wards. It also provides an amazing opportunity for patients
who would not normally be able to
participate in the ARV rollout program. A dedicated team of
nurses and caregivers continually witness amazing turn arounds in terminally ill patients who miraculously
respond to tender care, medication, and careful monitoring. These patients
walk out of the hospice ready for a second chance in life!
 The
Home Based Care program uses 320 trained community volunteers who care for over
900 infected HIV/AIDS patients in the community and nearby settlements (radius of ~90 km). Often
patients live quite far from the hospital and regional clinics and
would have difficulty traveling to them on their
own from home. As a result, the volunteers become crucial to ensuring
compliance with ARV treatment and to monitoring the progress of these
patients. If a patient worsens, the volunteers bring them to
a hospital or clinic. This
program is supervised by a team of 4 full-time Philanjalo workers and
one DOH
sister. This is a palliative care
program with a holistic approach to care.
- COMMUNITY-BASED TB TREATMENT
In
conjunction with COSH and DOH, teams of health care workers visit
diagnosed Tuberculosis (TB) patients in their homes and bring them
their daily injections, eliminating the need for them to stay
at the hospital for the duration of their treatment.
This helps to free up space in the COSH TB wards and allows
patients to get back to living their normal lives sooner.
- CARE FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN (OVC)
 In
response to the growing problem of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) left
in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic raging through the local
communities, Philanjalo
started the Khayelisha Care Centre as a joint effort with the
local Rock of Life church. Available resources are accessed and
distributed on behalf of the community and the center provides
a range of support services for the vulnerable children and
their care givers. Rock of Life Church has branches throughout
central Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) and Mpumalanga provinces.
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Care Centre Sanitation Plant
We just completed construction of our new Sanitation Plant for the care centre in May 2010.
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