“It is just wasting our time have to be every month” #MoreARVPillsNow

This week we are marching in Thabo Mofutsanyana, Lejweleputswa, and Dr Kenneth Kaunda to demand longer ARV refills for people living with HIV. Not only would a longer supply of ARVs mean fewer trips back to the clinic — making medicine collection easier — but it would also reduce the burden on already congested and overstretched facilities. However, of people living with HIV interviewed by Ritshidze in April and May 2024, only 12% reported receiving a 3 month supply in Thabo Mofutsanyana, only 25% in Lejweleputswa, only 35% in Alfred Nzo, and only 46% in Dr Kenneth Kaunda — despite being recommended in National ART Guidelines. Here Seipati* tells her story about how distressing the long waits are at the clinic.

Virginia, Free State local Seipati* is faced with the difficult decision of having to be in the clinic for regular check-ups but is also fed up with long clinic queues and having to put up with bad service from nurses. 

The long waits are so distressing for her, she says she would rather skip check-ups all together and only be in the clinic to pick up her medicines, currently at two-monthly intervals.

Seipati takes medication for epilepsy and is also on ARVs and uses the OR Tambo Clinic in the town. She’s been on ARVs for 15 years and says that she’s managed well on her treatment, which means in recent years she was put on a two-month supply for ARVs. Earlier this year though her weight dropped drastically and she was put on a monthly pick-up schedule. 

“I know the check-ups are good so that I know what is going on with my body, but sometimes there is nothing wrong. It should be a three-months supply for all my medicines, because honestly speaking even when the nurses check you every month they aren’t helping — it is just wasting our time have to be every month,” she says in SeSotho. 

Seipati adds, by example: “One of the reasons I’m losing weight is that I have no appetite lately. But they don’t give me anything to help for that and they aren’t telling me anything about why I don’t have an appetite. And the problem is that if I don’t pick up weight I won’t get back to a multi-month supply for two months, never mind maybe for a three-month supply for my ARVs,” she says. For Seipati, she’s lost trust that the clinic visits are a benefit for her. Instead of feeling less anxious and more in control to management her conditions, clinic visits are more frustrating and time wasting. It’s stressful she says and she feels there’s nothing she can do about it — she just has to follow what it says in her appointment book, she says. 

* Name changed to protect identity

#MoreARVPillsNow