TUBERCULOSIS | DSP Diary

I recently entered a photo competition with the UNDP in support of the millennium development goals – the deadline of which is springing up on us incredibly fast. Almost half of the pictures I submitted were rejected because they did not depict an overall impression that suited the UNDP – one of progress and a job well done. As nice as this reality would be, by hiding faults and failures nothing is ever going to get better. I’ve grown tired of people only preaching what suits them, especially when there are lives on the line. So here are the pictures that got rejected. Read through them, and then lets decide how we can make these issues better. And if you’re interested, here are links to the pictures that were accepted:

(Top picture) An XDR-TB patient sits on her bed with her niece. There are six living in this 1 bedroom home. Five sleep in the bedroom and she sleeps in the living room – a vital infection control measure. In her 22 months spent at Brooklyn Chest she did not receive one visitor and now says she wants to die close to her family. But even this comes at a price: her family must take strict TB preventative measures, and she fears disclosing her status in public in case she is attacked or murdered.

Her aunt, mother and grandmother died from MDR-TB. It is suspected that it was contracted from a cousin who was frequently in and out of prison and a defaulter on treatment. She cared for her mother and grandmother until their death. In 2005 she first tested positive for MDR-TB, but in spite of adherence was finally diagnosed with XDR-TB. She spent 22 months in total in Brooklyn Chest Hospital where she received full XDR treatment but her sputum remained positive and her health slowly deteriorated. There is nothing more the system can do for her, and she is living out the rest of her days at home. She was one of the first patients admitted with XDR-TB. She remembers how nurses were uniformed about XDR at this point and stigmatised patients with XDR, at one stage they toyi-toyied outside the gates chanting ‘Out with XDR’. Provincial Health of Western Cape refused us access to their XDR ward.

This family has two other children who are not infected. Here the eldest daughter (5yrs) feeds the youngest sibling (one of a twin, the other twin died of double pneumonia shortly after birth) The five of them sleep in a single bedroom shack with minimal ventilation. As the shack does not belong to them they are prohibited to make changes to it. Well ventilated areas are the most basic preventative measure needed to be taken to combat TB.

Doctors examine an X-Ray from a XDR-TB Patient. The patient is a nurse by profession and has seen X-Rays like this many times before. After working for the system for many years it has now failed her. She was first diagnosed with MDR-TB in 2004. She was fully treated but did not respond to treatment. In 2006 she was diagnosed with XDR-TB. To this date she has never defaulted on her TB or ARV medication but still remains culture positive, meaning there is active TB in her.

FOR THEIR EYES ONLY