Higgins experiences AIDS-ravaged Africa
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Higgins, the 22-year-old daughter of Suzette Alford and Tim Higgins, made the journey as part of the International Scholar Laureate Program Delegation on Nursing. The trip made stops in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.
Higgins, a nursing major who has been accepted into the nursing program at Motlow and will begin classes this fall, says the trip began when the organization contacted her about the delegation because of her major and the fact she had appeared on the school?s dean?s list.
In addition to attending school, Higgins is employed at NHC Healthcare, which helped sponsor her trip, along with her mom. The group included 44 students from across the nation.
As she toured the country, Higgins found South Africa is devastated by HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis, with the weakest segments of society most at risk.
?It was mostly mothers and children,? Higgins said. ?If HIV-AIDS came into play the fathers were gone. They abandoned their families, or HIV-AIDS had already killed the father. It was everywhere we went.
The statistics are sobering. According to information provided to the students, there are 40 million people living with HIV globally, and an estimated 4.4 to 6.6 million of those live in South Africa, about 14 to 16 percent of the country?s population. This means that more than 10 percent of the global population living with HIV is in South Africa.
Despite this, Higgins said the country is fighting a valiant battle, but there is a wide chasm between the poor and the well-to-do.
?We got to visit several hospitals, both in the public and private sector,? Higgins said, ?and got to see the diversity.?
Higgins says there is a huge gap between the public and private facilities, with the public hospitals dealing with a major shortage of medical personnel and also operating with older equipment.
?These hospitals are huge,? Higgins said. ?They?ll have nine or 10 wings in them, but only be using three or four because of the staff. They don?t have enough staff. The equipment looks like something we might have had in the 1950s. Very outdated.?
Meanwhile, at the private hospitals it is quite another story, Higgins said.
?In the private sector, where people have what?s called Net Care, which is like our TennCare or Medicare, or any kind of insurance, it was like our Vanderbilt or St. Thomas, something ritzy almost.?
But despite being overworked and lacking modern equipment, Higgins said those working in the public sector were not discouraged.
?The people that worked in them, they were just so into it,? Higgins said. ?I didn?t matter. They worked with what they had. They were happy to be involved.?
Even so, Higgins said there is still a very strong interest in traditional tribal and spiritual medical treatment from practitioners called Sangoma, or what some might term ?witch doctors.?
?This was a very big issue that also kept coming up with the medical professionals that we talked to,? Higgins said, ?because they said that the majority of the time the people would refuse their advice on the medications to take because they still whole-heartedly believed more in the ways of the earth to heal.?
Higgins said the trip was literally life-changing for her.
?I feel rich now,? she said. ?I?m not even middle-class, but I feel like I have so much, now that I?ve see the way they live for the most part. I learned we have it good. We have it really good. And everyone wants to get to America. Everyone asked, ?How much does it cost to get to America?? They don?t hate us like some people think. Everywhere we went they had a song and a dance for us.?
Though the trip was designed as an educational experience, there was a bit of recruitment from the country?s medical facilities, which is not surprising, considering the shortage of nurses.
?Everywhere we went it was, ?Please come back,? and ?Would anyone like to come back?? The trip was to give some insight into how they did need help,? Higgins said.
And the strategy was effective, as Higgins herself proves.
?If I ever got the chance to go back, like with a group after I finish my nursing degree, and work for a few months or so,? Higgins said, ?I would be more than happy to do that.?