Team PATA

Genevieve

Meet Genevieve, one of PATA's Expert Patients from Cameroon:
Genevieve is a housewife and part time community volunteer at Chantal Biya Foundation. As a PATA expert patient, she receives patients, giving them information and guiding them. This is her story:

"I work 35 hours a week, Monday to Friday from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. My day starts by welcoming patients; I let them talk and then I listen. After listening to them, I give them the information needed and then guide them to various services where they are supposed to go. Some of the challenges I experienced are that I am neither a nurse nor an auxiliary nurse. It took me a while to get used to the system. What touched me most is that Dr Ateba involved us in the CTA activities and trusts us.
We have been trained as community workers on HIV/AIDS in October 2006 and we were given training certificates. I would like to have training as an auxiliary nurse, and also training in therapeutic education, and then get a reliable certificate that would allow me to get an employment in the future.
As for improving the expert patient program, I would like to meet expert patients from other countries to share and exchange experiences. Increase the number of training sessions and hire more HIV positive expert patients for a long time in order to have a better patient follow up.

The expert patient program makes me feel fulfilled, instructed and hopeful. At present, I look at life in a very positive way. In my family, they are aware that one can live longer with HIV/AIDS.
The expert patient program has a vital impact in the service as people infected and affected no longer consider HIV as synonymous to a death sentence and they are open to dialogues, furthermore, clinic appointments are observed."