The integration of previously hospital based Antiretroviral sites into Primary Health Care clinics in Lukhanji sub district of Chris Hani District Municipality

The first country to take note of HIV/AIDS was United States of America in the report published by Atlanta based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention (Barnett and Whiteside, 2006). In the past years ARV program was largely hospital-based where clients were assessed by doctors, discussed with multidisciplinary team which involved social workers, dieticians and pharmacists before initiated on treatment. The integration of ARV services into PHC was one of the strategies proposed to increase access to treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS (WHO, 2010). The study sought to describe the integration of previously hospital based ARV sites into PHC clinics in Lukhanji sub-district of Chris Hani Health District in Eastern Cape. A qualitative research design was followed and a phenomenological approach was used to examine the experiences of clients who previously took ARV treatment at Frontier hospital and were transferred to take treatment at Ezibeleni, Ilinge, Philani and Sada clinics. An interview guide was used for data collection. Participants were sampled through purposive sampling. The study was composed of four focus groups for clients with a total of forty (18 males and 22 females) and 10 professional nurses for semi structured individual interviews. In the analysis of data, the collected data from voice recordings were transcribed verbatim and translated from isiXhosa to English. The researcher immersed herself into the data, re read, and themes and sub-themes emerged. Related topics to each other were grouped together in order to reduce the number of categories and to create themes. The similar categories were grouped and analyzed. Findings indicated that integration of ART sites into PHC clinics was a strategy put in place to increase accessibility and availability of ARV treatment to all communities. Both participants stated that integration brought services nearer to people and caused much relief from spending more money for travelling long distances. Ambulance delays were reported by both participants as the major challenge in the referral system between clinics and the hospital. Other challenges facing integration of ART services into PHC clinics included long waiting times caused by shortage of staff in the clinics, lack of consulting rooms for nurses and waiting areas for clients. Also lack of other health care professionals including social workers, dieticians, and psychologists was mentioned. The recommendations made by the researcher on the conclusion of this study addressed all the challenges mentioned by participants. The aim was to increase accessibility and availability of ART services to all the communities