The 21 year old skinny woman had moved from the Eastern Cape to Cape Town as a youngster in the hope of making a better life for herself. But after her diagnosis, the father of her young son deserted her, never to be seen again.
For six long months she took her TB treatment and was eventually told she had been cured.
But in 2006 she was diagnosed with TB for a second time, at Nolungile Clinic in Khayelitsha, the same health facility where she was receiving her HIV medication. Her doctor advised her to test for TB after she complained about weight loss and night sweats.
‘We HIV positive patients are always advised to do regular tests to establish the presence of TB and other infections. But I also requested the test because I was worried that I was losing weight, sweating at night and had agonising pains in my body’, recalls Mkhize.
She underwent TB treatment for the second time, completed the six month course and was declared healthy and TB free.
But last year she started suffering from diarrhoea and Mkhize was referred by the clinic to GF Jooste Hospital. She was diagnosed with TB and put on treatment for the third time, only this time two months into her treatment she was informed she had drug-resistant TB.
‘After my third TB diagnosis, I took treatment but saw no change because I was still not eating well and losing weight. I was then told I had drug resistant TB’, she said.
Her 2 year old son was also diagnosed with TB when she had him tested. Mkhize and her son now travel to Nolungile Clinic every day of the week for their drug-resistant TB treatment.
‘I wanted to be sure that my son was in good health before sending him back home so I had him tested for TB and I was shocked to discover that he had MDR TB. I had him tested because I didn’t want him to get sick in Eastern Cape because they don’t normally have treatment’, said Mkhize.
Drug-resistant TB patients experience all kinds of prejudice from other patients and their communities, especially when they are wearing the masks ‘ a prerequisite for allowing them to remain in their community while being treated instead of being hospitalised
‘Sometimes people stare at you when you are wearing a mask, and if you sit next to them without the mask they order you to quickly put it on or risk infecting everyone’, says Mkhize.
But she says people are slowly getting used to seeing them wearing masks, even though some still seem worried whenever someone wearing a mask sits next to them.
Mkhize explains that people assume that once, diagnosed with drug-resistant TB, you will die, but she appeals to people to get tested if they suspect they may have TB as this increases their chances of being healed completely.
‘People need to know that drug-resistant TB can be cured. They must get themselves tested and bravely endure their treatment,’ advises Mkhize.
*Name changed to protect the patient’s identity
