Our Work

HIV/AIDS Home Care

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In the dim afternoon light, sitting just inside the doorway of her bamboo house, Men Assiyas describes how crucial it is for AIDS patients like herself to receive home-care visits from a group of Christian workers from a Cambodian HIV/AIDS ministry supported by Samaritan’s Purse Canada.

“(They) visit me and check on me,” Assiyas says, from her small home on three-meter-high poles in Mean Chey, one of Phnom Penh’s poorest districts. “They are very kind to me. Right now, (they are) giving me rice to feed my children, and money for my hospital visits. In the future, if I die, I know they will help my children with food and with school (tuition and books) and with other things.”

The 45-year-old mother of four says she is also grateful to the ministry for educating other people in her crowded neighborhood – telling them they needn’t fear physical contact with her because HIV and AIDS can be transmitted only via body fluids.

“Before, there were problems here for people who had AIDS,” Assiyas says. “People were afraid of them. People stayed away. But now, people have learned that they do not have to be afraid or to run away.”

Through its interaction with locals, our partner has learned that most people living in slum areas were very fearful of HIV/AIDS patients – mistakenly assuming they could contract the disease through such simple physical contact as a handshake. This atmosphere of fear resulted in most HIV/AIDS patients being ostracized – left at home with no one to care for them.

The response was to recruit volunteers through local churches and training them to visit HIV/AIDS patients in their homes to offer services such as counseling, helping to administer their medications, feeding them, bathing them, and more. The volunteers also helped care for HIV/AIDS patients’ children – food, school supplies, etc.

“When a mother gets sick (with AIDS), she can’t care for her children,” explains the ministry’s Co-Director Or Lee. “She’ll lie there, and her children will just cry beside her. We help.”
 
A study published in 2002 by Cambodia’s National AIDS Authority found that 42 per cent of new AIDS infections were transmitted to wives by their husbands, and 33 per cent to children from their mothers.

Other research has shown that Cambodia has the highest per-capita incidence of AIDS in all of Asia. More than 259,000 Cambodians have contracted AIDS, and 94,000 have subsequently died. Almost 19,000 additional cases are expected annually.

Lee has seen many, many HIV/AIDS patients die. One of the saddest cases for him involved an impoverished young mother who became a prostitute after her husband died. Within a short time, she contracted AIDS; then so did her daughter. Lee cared for them both – including reading and praying with them. The mother died first; then her daughter.

The Cambodian government is now providing anti-retroviral (ARVs) drugs on a fairly widespread scale, which has resulted in HIV-AIDS patients living much longer. Assiyas, for example, is close to starting ARVs and doctors tell her she’s capable of living for years to come.

As for the home-care treatment HIV/AIDS patients can expect to receive from HIV/AIDS ministries supported by Samaritan’s Purse, Lee says: “When they learn they have AIDS, we are able to tell them, ‘Don’t worry. You won’t be lonely. We will visit and care for you.’”

Ways You Can Help
Pray Please pray that God will continue to provide direction to Samaritan’s Purse, as we respond to people’s needs, share the love of Christ, and serve the church worldwide.		Give Support our work with vital HIV/AIDS programs and projects around the world. Donate Here.