Day Three in Arua: Testing day!

image7 schools tested themselves against each other and 150 children were tested for HIV. So we passed the test.

The HIV testing team from Arua hospital was fantastic: showing professionalism and compassion the 5 of them (2 nurses, 1 technician and 2 counsellors) worked without a break all day to cope with the queues of children keen to put the T after the ABC.

imageOut of the 150 children 2 tested positive. One was already known to be positive but he naturally took the test to be with all the others. The other boy aged 11 was Sudanese, his parents moved back to Sudan leaving him in the care of his grandmother. He had been recently suffering from a number of worrying symptoms: convulsions, nasal bleeding, fever. It came as a surprise to us, initially at least, that he welcomed his diagnosis. For him it explained his symptoms, it gave him confidence that he could get treatment and equally important he felt that he would be in loving compassionate hands. He nominated two of his teachers and his grandmother as the people who would know about his diagnosis. The counsellor who gave him his news pledged to continue supporting him when he attended the HIV clinic at the hospital. He now has a life to look forward to. Just maybe, by CWB just being there, and making sure real testing took place to compliment the chanting of ABCT, we saved a life. Some achievement. Which made us all pretty emotional at the end of an emotional day.

We ended the day by interviewing two of the HIV team. One thing that really struck us was the need for teachers, some of whom had revealed their more “competitive” sides during the inter-school matches, to be more inclusive – never to stigmatise HIV positive children. So maybe we need to look more at this element in our day 1 coaches session.

imageIt’s worth mentioning that present on the day were some volunteers from the local Red Cross providing first aid. They treated around 25 children for cuts/grazes and even offered some massage for sore limbs to CWB team members, one of whom apparently obtained a nurses phone number just in case some after-care was required!

4 comments to “Day Three in Arua: Testing day!”

Comments are closed.