Baseline assessment report: communication sharing practices and needs of people living with HIV: a case of Nkangala in Mpumalanga and Ekurhuleni in Gauteng

The main findings of the baseline revealed a range of human resources and facilities that are dedicated to HIV and ART, namely: family physicians, professional nurses, and community healthcare workers such as counsellors, adherence trackers and volunteer peer counsellors. Community healthcare workers indicated that they were responsible for counselling, early diagnosis based on the results of the HIV test, and adherence management. Family physicians and professional nurses do PLHIV initiation to ART as well as attend to other patients who visit the clinic for other health problems. They also do administrative work in some instances. As for the infrastructure, the baseline established that Nkangala has five clinics offering testing and treatment initiation services, while in Ekurhuleni it was observed that in the Goba clinic compound, there is the implementing clinic (Goba clinic) and a New Start centre that also offers testing and counselling services. The baseline also discovered that ART is perceived very positively and is generally embraced as a life-saving treatment in the communities around the clinics. In terms of gender, it was established that more females are on ART than males. With regards to initiation to treatment, the data provided from Nkangala revealed that 46 PLHIV were initiated in May and 26 PLHIV in November 2017.