Millie* (25) then slowly lowers her body onto the chair and stares into space. She doesn’€™t speak unless prompted to do so. Her heart is broken.

Nurses at her local clinic have recently handed her a death sentence, informing her that they have no antiretrovirals. But this is not what ultimately broke her heart ‘€“ they sent her home to die in her three-roomed Grasland brickhouse that was once filled with the laughter and gurgling of her newborn son, but now serves as a painful reminder that he is no longer there.

What is even more painful for her is that she now realises that she infected him and that it could have been avoided in the first place.

‘€œWhile I was pregnant in 2007 I went to the antenatal clinic on several occasions, but they never offered for me to take an HIV test, never,’€ says the softspoken young women, drawing her jumper tighter around her skeletal body.

‘€œWe were so excited, he was our firstborn and we had no sense that all was not right. I brought him home and a few months later he started vomiting, had constant diarrhoea and painful thrush. At six months he was admitted to hospital and immediately put on antiretroviral treatment,’€ she recalls.

Millie was also encouraged by health workers at the hospital to undergo an HIV test and she agreed.

However, her son didn’€™t survive and passed away a couple of weeks after starting treatment.

Millie’€™s condition deteriorated rapidly and she was referred in July last year for ARV treatment to her local clinic where her CD4 count of 133 confirmed she urgently needed treatment. She underwent drug readiness training   in October and was declared to be ready for treatment by the end of the month.

The three documents Millie presents back this up, with the government issue forms detailing her progress and confirming her completion of the education programmes.

On October 17, two weeks before the Free State Health Department placed the moratorium on initiating new patients on treatment, Millie was referred to Pelonomi Hospital for treatment.

‘€œAt Pelonomic they simply told me to come back in February to collect Bactrim and Vitamin B. They have not mentioned to me that I need ARVs. They simply keep telling me to come back. ‘€“ Health-e News.

*Name changed