Two flies land on Lilian Matiwane’€™s face. She twitches and twists in frustration. Bedridden and immobile, Matiwane cannot move her limbs. A catheter tube trails out from her thin duvet to a bucket on the floor.

Matiwane (39) is terminally ill with AIDS, and is being cared for by her sister.

She stares dully at the chipped rose-pink wall as she tries to explain her journey into pain. Her voice gets heavy with despair.

“It started with a lame leg. It was a growth. I drank the pillies. But I started to get more growths. Then I had panic attacks, depression.

“My hands and feet are sore; very, very sore. I can’€™t move them. I have pain all over.”

She cries silently, hopelessly, turning her face away.

Since August, Matiwane has been in and out of various hospitals. On 14 November, she was discharged from hospital in Actonville and sent home to Daveyton to die.

“The hospital never helped. I have bed sores on my left side and my buttocks. But they did nothing. That’€™s what’€™s hurting the most,” Matiwane gasps.

Girly Khoaripe steps in and gently tissues the tears from Lilian’€™s face, soothing her with kind words as she does so.

Khoaripe heads the Oasis for Life Church’€™s home-based care and counselling programme in the East Rand. Since 1997, local hospitals and clinics have been referring terminally ill AIDS patients to Oasis when they feel they cannot do anything more for them.

A former teacher, Khoaripe gave up her steady salary to dedicate herself to caring for the dying.

“Although I am only getting a stipend, I am more fulfilled than when I was a teacher,” she says.

It takes a special person to care for the dying; to bathe and wash the wasted bodies that are often wracked with diarrhoea.

And Khoaripe faces the added task of also supporting Oasis’€™s 28 volunteer care-givers, who work fulltime for a R600 stipend.

“I need to debrief the carers. Sometimes they get very depressed and they could get sick. They can be irritable and exhausted because the work is so stressful and they are burnt out,” says Khoaripe.

Carers Thembi Sindane and Andiswa Hangana spend at least two hours with Matiwane every day, washing her and attending to her physical needs, making sure that she is never left alone.

In another part of Daveyton, Lettie Moloi (38) lies comatose on her sister Hilda’€™s bed. She has not been eating for the past few days, and a thin film of sweat covers her skeletal, yellowish face.

Carers Nontsapho Songo and Hetty Gaofetoge are on hand to monitor Lettie’€™s progress and ensure that she is washed. Later, they will counsel the family ‘€“ including Lettie’€™s two sons ‘€“ and try to help them to deal with their grief.

Gaofetoge says she became a carer because, as a member of the Oasis Church, she is dedicated to loving others and to helping those who suffer.

“Nontsapho and I care for her. We wash her and see that she takes her meals, although now of course lately she doesn’€™t co-operate as far as eating is concerned and she remains asleep,” says Gaofetoge.

At present, Oasis carers are looking after 18 terminally ill people. Khoaripe says her volunteers ‘€“ 90% of whom are women — are “really prepared to walk an extra mile” for the dying.

Aside from providing physical care, they will clean the patients’€™ environment, take them to the doctor and cook for them. They also have a little morphine to eke out to their terminal patients, but it isn’€™t able to relieve their pain for long.

Oasis also provides support to 48 HIV positive people through weekly support groups which try to counter the depression and loneliness often experienced by people with HIV.

Many of those who attend the support groups also help Oasis to run AIDS education sessions at 11 clinics in the surrounding areas.

The organisation also keeps an eye on 60 children orphaned by AIDS who live with relatives across the East Rand.

Khoaripe praises the Gauteng HIV/AIDS Directorate for its support ‘€“ particularly in training staff in financial and project management and counselling.

“Most of our budget comes from the directorate. We are satisfied with it, although it is not enough. We have to also put effort into it and see what we can give as well so that the community knows that this belongs to them.

“So far we have managed to get local businesses and church members to donate food so we can give parcels to the families because some are very poor.” ‘€“ Health-e News Service.