Objectives:

•  Delivering a maternity & hospitalisation services to the community

•  Prevent MTCT (mother-to-child-transmission) of HIV in partnership with the PMTCT project

A community maternity clinic was built in 1998 with the help of the Herman van Veen Foundation and the Stichting Colombine, both from the Netherlands . The clinic has been operational since May 1999. The aim of the clinic is to provide affordable antenatal, obstetrical and postnatal services to the community in the Moutse health district. No other quality maternity services are available in the district. About 20 patients visit the antenatal and postnatal clinic each day. Annually about 400 deliveries take place at CMC, and this number increases every year.

Besides antenatal, obstetrical and postnatal services the clinic also provides a weekly family planning clinic. At this clinic not only contraceptives are being distributed, but women are also educated on the subject of sexual hygiene, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, the danger of HIV/Aids, sexual abuse, etc. About 180 women visit the family planning clinic each month.

CMC is staffed by two midwives and four enrolled nurses, which is the absolute practicable minimum for a 24-hour facility. The services are provided far below actual cost. The antenatal services package is provided at R200 (including the laboratory tests, ultrasounds, and standard medication). A full delivery is provided at R300. The clinic has its own ambulance, in order to transport patients to a hospital in the event of caesarean section being necessary.

In September 2003 an extensive prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme has been introduced. This programme aims at reducing the HIV transmission from mother to child to less than 1%. The programme works with a very daring protocol, in an underprivileged area, which might serve as a model to start a new, HIV free, generation in South Africa . Hopefully this protocol will proof itself so that it can be introduced in the public sector at a later stage, and reduce the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child all over the country. At this stage (November 2005) the results are phenomenal: the 86 neonates born out of HIV positive women are all HIV negative!!