Living PositivelyGenre : Medical and Health
Bev White has a beautiful home on the East Rand and a thriving career. Bouncing 14-month-old Natascha completes this perfect picture. A year ago, Bev had reason to think nothing could go wrong. Then, out of the blue, she was faced with a deep fear many of her friends would admit to only in private.
Bev White (Living Positively at Home): 'There are many women who will look at the way their nanny or their domestic is with their children. And I'm sure at the back of their minds they will be thinking to themselves, you know: she's a bit sick today or, she looks like she's losing weight. They've said to me, 'I don't know… I don't know if she's HIV positive or negative; there's a good chance she might be positive'.'
Just like generations of South African babies before her, Natascha is growing up in the capable and loving hands of a live-in childminder. Thembi is like a second mother to Natascha. But Thembi also has a grown-up daughter of her own who lives in a township 30 kilometres away. When Thembi's daughter told her she was HIV positive last year, Thembi and Bev's lives took an unexpected turn.
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'Bev and Thembi live here in an ordinary middle-class suburban home like thousands of others in South Africa. But these two women have found a way to go far beyond the maid and madam stereotype.'
HIV in Thembi's family wrenched both women out of their comfort zones. Bev and Thembi decided to have themselves tested together - just for peace of mind, they said. Neither was prepared for the outcome when they went back for their results.
Bev: 'And we both felt that Thembi was negative. And we went in and we had our chat with the doctor and he said, 'I'm afraid it's positive'.'
Thembi: 'Your blood is positive. That big stone fall on me.'
Thembi feared the worst. The law is clear: no-one can be fired or discriminated against for being HIV-positive, and yet many employers still find a way to get rid of domestic workers and childminders when they contract the virus.
Ruda: 'What made you think you would lose your job?'
Thembi: 'Because I knew many people who lost their job, they lost their friends, they lost their boyfriends, because I knew.'
Chloe Hardy (Aids Law Project): 'Because it's in the home, because it's someone who's working with your family, people for some reason think that the law does not apply to them.'
Chloe Hardy is with the Aids Law Project. She says Thembi had good reason to be scared; there's still widespread discrimination against HIV positive childminders, even if employers don't fire them outright.
Chloe: 'We see a lot of dismissals. We've also had cases where people have been told: you're not allowed to use the toilet anymore in our house; you're not allowed to use the cups; you're not allowed to prepare food any more. And this is a big thing… a lot of people think it can be transmitted through food preparation. It cannot.'
Dr. Francois Venter heads the HIV Clinicians Society and is in charge of the anti-retroviral clinic at Johannesburg Hospital. He too says the risk of infection between a childminder and child is virtually non-existent.
Dr. Francois Venter (HIV Clinician): 'It's paradoxically one of the least contagious viruses. To contract the virus you actually have to have sex with somebody and, in fact, even that's not a particular[ly] efficient mode of transportation. Most cases will actually not transmit it.'
Ruda: 'What about a nanny with a cut on her hand and a baby with a rash?'
Frascois: 'I think in those situations the risk is so small… As long as the nanny is trained to take care of herself, to not come into contact with the baby at that point. As long as the person recognises that they're HIV positive, that they just need to stop the bleeding and immediately after put a plaster on, there's absolutely no risk. As long as the nanny is not breastfeeding, it's absolutely fine.'
Bev didn't know there was such little chance of infection. She was torn between loyalty to Thembi and her concern for little Natascha's safety. Natascha was barely two months old at the time. Worried sick, Bev sought advice from her doctor. If it was his decision, he'd let Thembi go, he said.
Bev: 'And I think that was the turning point for me because I became quite angry… Because, here was this lady who's just been diagnosed HIV positive; her daughter is HIV positive; she's worried about her job; she's the only breadwinner, and now suddenly the situation is out of her hands and her employer is going to let her go. Sometimes when I was scared, I thought about it, but I knew deep down I would never do it. No woman deserves to be fired because she's HIV positive.'
Bev made it her mission to research the HI Virus. And from the research mission, a campaign was born.
Bev: 'It's such a unique, a very specific situation that we're in, for us to trust our HIV positive nanny with our two-month-old baby. For me, that was a big thing and I thought to myself there must be other people out there who are in a similar situation.'
Bev wanted to start a support group for employers and HIV positive nannies. She and Thembi wrote a letter to the Sunday Times, telling their story. There was an overwhelming show of interest - and last month, Bev and Thembi launched the support group at a church in Edenvale. They want to get nannies and employers talking to each other - to trust each other, so that nannies can volunteer for HIV tests without fear of dismissal.
Employer: 'There are girls who go to a clinic and say they are pregnant and then the baby comes and the baby might be positive. Is this compulsory? Is it so taboo that they can't tell somebody they're positive…'
Nanny: 'With HIV nobody tells anybody before that person goes through a counselling session.'
Nurse: 'I would advise that everybody must know their status so that everybody can get help.'
High-flying Johannesburg businessman Pierre van der Hoven never even considered firing his two small children's minder when she tested HIV positive five months ago. But he jumped at the opportunity to join Bev's group.
Pierre van der Hoven: 'I think it's knowledge and comfort and support - somebody to phone, you know. It's somebody to share the experience with, which is not really me, but people who share the similar disease.
Johanna Mayisela and her daughter Alzina have worked for Pierre for years. Despite testing positive, Alzina is on a healthy diet and medicine - and Pierre trusts her implicitly with his kids. Alzina's own little girl grows up with them. Pierre is a recently divorced single father and simply could not raise his children without the stability and love the two women offer.'
Alzina Mayisela: 'I love them as I love my own children, wherever I am. When I'm away from them for a long time, I miss them very much.'
Pierre: 'You can't plan your life on the minute 'what if' scenario. What's far more of concern to me is - this is a human being… this is not a disposable item.'
Chloe: 'We had one particularly terrible case where a domestic worker disclosed her HIV status to the family she was working for. She liked the children very much and the children really loved her and she took very good care of them. The husband of the family told the children in front of her, 'Don't go near so-and-so any more. She's very sick and she's going to die'. And the little children started crying. And of course that was completely untrue… she was not going to die at all.'
Once employers know that their nannies are HIV positive, they can help them get medicine.
Ruda: 'Starting treatment is the beginning of a lifetime commitment. Among other things, you will have to come back to the clinic once a month every month.'
Francois: 'People turn around… it's actually phenomenal.'
Ruda: 'And life expectancy?'
Francois: 'If you take the drugs correctly and you do not get resistance and you have a switched-on health- care worker, probably 20 or 30 years.'
Bev: 'I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I know that if we can live from day to day and we can work together, we can… we can overcome this. I know we can do it. I mean, there have been people living with HIV for 10, 12 years - and I'm sure we can do the same thing.'
Bev and Thembi's message, although not always comfortable, seems to have had a deep impact on households across the country. The two women are regularly invited to address diverse audiences. At a church in Parkhurst, a group of job seekers hang on to every word they say.
Thembi: 'I was so lucky, I had Bev White on my side.'
Ruda: 'So what difference has it made speaking out?'
Thembi: 'Like I was carrying heavy, heavy stuff on me. But to talk, you know, and hear people… because some people they do phone us and tell us the problems and I say 'No, I am better', at least I can do something for somebody.'
For Bev and Thembi the most important thing is to break through the fears and prejudice that shrouds HIV; to de-mystify what it's about and how life goes on.
Pierre: 'I've been warned: be careful of telling the mothers at school because they may not come to your daughter's Christmas party or birthday party. So, against my better judgement, I'm circumspect about who I tell.'
Ruda: 'But you're talking about it very publicly now?'
Pierre: 'Ja, that's fine. And if I can persuade one employer to treat their employee decently by going public, then it's worth it.'
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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