Nurses and AIDS

There’€™s a myth in South Africa that nurses are somehow immune to the HI virus because they deal with the aftermath of the pandemic on a daily basis. For Thembi Zungu, a senior nurse living with HIV and a coordinator for NAPWA in Port Elizabeth, disclosing her status was one of the most important decisions she  made to help shatter that myth. She decided to disclose her status in 1996 after living in denial for five years. She received mixed reaction from her nursing colleagues who couldn’€™t seem to understand why she needed to speak out. Thembi says she did so because she has witnessed too many nurses dying from AIDS-related illnesses without anyone ever acknowledging this.

This report is in isiXhosa.

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