SOCIETY OF HOMEOPATHS NEWSLETTER – Summer 2006
AIDS clinic in Botswana is bringing queues of hopeful patients

Registered member Noam Bar qualified in June last year and in November flew to Botswana where he spent six months working as a volunteer for the Maun Homeopathy Project, which aims to provide a permanent homeopathic service for people living with HIV and AIDS and/or traumatised by rape. Here, he reflects on the experience.

The patients in Botswana have no knowledge about homeopathy, and are very rarely interested in learning more. All they need to know is that the homeopaths have helped a neighbour or a relative and, personal recommendation being the way of life in Africa, they come full of confidence that they’ll be healed. For the people visiting the clinic, we are “doctors”. A bit weird for doctors - no white coats, no nurses, the clinic is sometimes a bit of shade and a couple of plastic chairs, and the pills are small and few - but they seem to trust us more than the doctors in the hospital, who never seem to have time to listen.

No offence intended towards the doctors - even as a homeopath you’ve got to be quick, there are just too many sick people. The two homeopaths in Maun treat about 60 patients a week, in three main clinics. These are located in the Lutheran Church, in a Kgotla, which is the seat of a local chief and a community centre, and in Women Against Rape (WAR), an organisation supporting women who have suffered rape or abuse.

We also do home visits, for patients who are too ill to come to the clinic. It’s both important and depressing to see the conditions in which people live, to witness their ability to somehow make a living out of absolutely nothing. Often, one working family member will support up to 15 others. There’re no jobs to be found!

So our work is done in the heart of the community, and the feedback is immediate. During the day it’s great to hear the voices of the people waiting outside the clinic in the shade, chatting away the long hours of waiting, laughing. A patient would occasionally be tired, ask for a mattress, and lie down for a nap. Sometimes, around lunchtime, a lady selling corn on the cob would come. Not everyone would have the money, but somehow everyone will get a share. At first I thought that the people waiting knew each other, but that it not usually the case. They just easily connect - so different from a British queue!

HIV/AIDS is such a terrible disease not only because of its deadliness, but also because its influence is so multi-faceted: it has the power to influence every tissue in the body, it represents a devastating social stigma, and it is often accompanied by a morbid self perception. This complexity is overwhelming for allopaths, but not for homeopaths. In fact, the clinical results that we achieve in the clinics here are nothing short of miraculous.

In some cases we clearly snatch people from the brink of death. A day before I left Maun, a woman came for a follow-up. When I saw her, two weeks before, she had had diarrhoea and vomiting for the past six weeks, and was not eating or drinking at all. Extremely emaciated and weak, she was carried into the room supported by two people, and spent the consultation lying down. In my notes I wrote: "looks likes death”. The prescription was basic: Ars, Carb-v, Carc. And here she was again, walking unaided, lively, and very grateful.

Obviously, homeopathy can’t always help. Beyond a certain point only ARV’s can stop the HIV virus. If the treatment starts even later all one can offer the patient is a smoother transition into the other world. I was able to experience all these situations, and more - in six months I saw many hundreds of patients, and went through a lot of pain with them, but also learnt a huge amount.

Learning was not limited to the clinical field. It was the personal contact with the patients that taught me the most. I was taught the power of simplicity, of openness, of directness, of trust and of honesty. I was taught that feeling doesn’t always need to be conveyed in words, that we can genuinely reach to each other through opening our hearts, even if we can’t connect in any other way. This was a deep experience, and, possibly, it is also the single most important reason for our clinical success.

At the time of writing, I’ve been back from Maun for just a few weeks. And the thing I miss the most is the simplicity. There’s very little to worry about - you work hard during the day, come back home, have a walk along the river, watch the huge African sky and the fantastic sunset, cook dinner, and very soon afterwards you’re ready for bed. Combine very little distractions with a certainty that you do the right thing, and the bottom-line is simple, healthy existence.

But it wasn’t all a romantic altruistic journey. People who had been to Africa warned me that there is no place more likely to bring pathologies to the surface. And indeed both myself and the other homeopaths in Maun have all gone through interesting personal processes, which became an important part of the adventure, It must all be worthwhile, as we all plan to continue being involved with the project, and possibly come back to Maun.

How the experience will influence my practice in the UK is still unclear. Apart from a wealth of personal experience, I take back two important lessons, which hopefully I’ll be able to integrate into my work here. Firstly, being in Maun has convinced me that I’m better off working within a group of like-minded people rather than alone. Also, having seen the extent to which ARVs and homeopathy complement each other, I realised that collaborating with allopaths can bring very positive results for patients. I hope that, for me, the Maun experience was the first step towards establishing a multi-disciplinary practice here in the UK.

Hilary Fairclough, the founder and clinical director of the project, writes: The Maun Homeopathy Project is a registered charity established in 2002 in response to the AIDS pandemic and a personal connection with Maun, a town in Botswana which has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world. The project has been built on the foundations of trust and partnership and aims to relieve suffering and distress for people who are living with HIV and AIDS or who have been traumatised by rape.

In 2004 the Project received funding from the Bill Gates Foundation in Botswana to conduct a three month Pilot Project, featured in the winter 2005 Newsletter. Since then the charity has focussed on fundraising and through the support of many individuals, enough money was raised to restart the clinics in October 2005.

The charity arranges for two homeopaths to be in Maun at any one time and as the work involves treating serious pathology we ensure that at least one of the homeopaths has substantial experience in practice. We have been fortunate to recruit four homeopaths so far - Margaret Ecclestone, Noam Bar, Lesley Murphy and Julia Hunn - who by donating their time, energy and expertise have contributed to creating a vibrant and successful project. The charity plans to start training two local people in Maun next year so that the clinics become sustainable.

For more in formation on the Maun Homeopathy Project please visit  www.homeopathybotswana.com or email mhp@homeopathybotswana.com

To make a donation please send a cheque payable to:
The Maun Homeopathy Project to 37a Hartham Road, London N7 9JQ. Hilary can be contacted on 020 7607 3613.

Noam can be contacted on noam1965@hotmail.com or telephone: 07813 924 953

Source: Society of Homeopaths Newsletter – Summer 2006 © all rights reserved