TB Accountability

TB Accountability (Ukuphendula nge TB)

TB Proof will mentor community representatives serving on hospital boards and clinic committees to fulfil their role in keeping the district-level Department of Health accountable for the delivery of quality TB services in Khayelitsha.

Project description

We will develop TB policy briefs to guide TB champion workshops for 18 representatives as part of a mentorship programme.

TB Proof will facilitate workshops with community representatives to identify barriers to TB testing that can be strengthened through accountability and demand generation activities.

We will mentor them as TB champions to present recommendations to the district-level Department of Health, collaborate with civil society organisations (CSOs) to advocate for district-level priorities and leverage existing advocacy platforms to maximize effectiveness and sustainability. We will implement a TB awareness campaign on TB policies to increase TB testing and support TB champions in CLM activities to increase accountability for quality of service delivery.

Aims

Strengthened accountability for the TB Recovery Plan and National Strategic Plan for HIV, TB and STIs 2023-2028 (NSP) through supporting existing, mandated accountability platforms (district health councils, clinic committees, and hospital boards) in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape.

Thapelo Aphiri, a television star and the drama director in Hammanskraal, that helped to develop theatre plays to address barriers in the TB care cascade.

Project Achievements

We developed TB and advocacy skills workshops aimed at CHWs and their outreach team leaders. Using principles of human-centred design, CHWs used a card deck to identify local gaps in the TB care cascade.

CHW designed an intervention to address stigma as a barrier to accessing care. They used theatre to engage the community in conversations about TB and stigma. CHW TB champions presented on radio interviews and contributed to online articles.

They co-developed and presented an advocacy letter in-person to the Minister of Health in 2019 for World TB day. Partnerships with health workers at clinic level augmented CHW engagement with care and enhanced collaboration through setting up TB war rooms (multi-sectoral meetings with the Departments of Health, Social Development, Education, Agriculture) designed to improve TB care delivery and close gaps in the cascade of care.

CHWs presented their key needs to the National Department of Health to advocate for standardised high quality training and adequate infection prevention equipment alongside leading advocacy organisations in 2020. Report available here.

Our advocacy projects

TB Preventive Therapy

Some people may have latent TB – where some is infected by the TB bacteria but they do not show TB symptoms and cannot infect others.

TB Stigma Project

Stigma is a term describing the feeling of being ashamed, or experiencing societal disapproval in the way that other people treat you.

All oral drug-resistant TB Treatment

For many years patients were given a difficult choice: die because of drug resistant TB or become deaf as a results of the treatment.

TB IPC Training

Healthcare workers (HCWs) are three times more likely to be infected by TB than the general public and six times more likely to be hospitalized with drug-resistant TB.