BroadReach
Visiting a BroadReach Clinic
by Jacqueline Novogratz
February 2006: In Hammersdale, a small suburb outside of Durban, women wait outside the clinic because the waiting room is overflowing. This is an area with a 33% AIDS rate, although Dr. Sibu Lubelwana, the young and beautiful doctor who runs the place, believes it may be as high as 50% among the women. Dr. Lubelwana is one of the 50 private practitioners who work directly with BroadReach, the company in which Acumen Fund has invested. She is neat, organized and has a smile that lights a room, though she must deal with death at least weekly.
The BroadReach model, like so many of the Acumen Fund investments, is as much about dignity as it is about poverty. In Sibu’s area, there is actually a government clinic, but patients must wait for hours to receive treatment – often the whole day – and it is not unusual for there to be no supplies when they finally are able to see the doctor. BroadReach offers an option for patients to choose how they will receive treatment.
At Sibu’s clinic, people come for pre-scheduled appointments. They know they will receive the tests and medicines they need (BroadReach works with a courier system that ensures, for instance, that CD4 test results are returned within 24 hours via email, and within three days via paper).
Sibu says that it was always her dream to start a clinic with the highest level of services that also could serve the poor who couldn’t pay. Now she is living that dream, though she’d like to expand even further. She is looking for another doctor because of such high demand for long-term care - of the 25 patients she sees daily, 50-60 percent are HIV-positive. She could take more if she had help, though a major obstacle is finding qualified doctors.
Later, Sibu takes us on a home visit to meet one of her patients. Her name is Melta – she is in her late 40s, with short hair and flashing eyes, and she lives in a three-room house about five minutes from the clinic. Melta’s friends and a sister join us, and soon there are ten people in the room, talking.
We ask Melta to tell us her story. She stands and clasps her hands together in front of her. “About eight months ago,” she says, I thought I was going to die. In fact, I was planning my life around death and my five-year-old son and I used to cry almost every day. I thought I was going to die.”
Melta starts off happy but falls into tears as she talks about her son and how confused he was when she was sick. “I went to see Dr. Lubelwana and she helped me so much,” she continues. “She told me what was the matter, got me training, counseled me when it was too much. Now, you see? I have gained more than five kilos and am so happy. There are so many medicines that I have to take but I feel so good, so good, and everyone here helps me. At first, I was so afraid that people would shun me. But my friends are here and now people from the neighborhood are asking if I will help them. And I always do.”