Florence is an HIV counselor and nurse at a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, who was trained by Solthis as part of the project.
When I was 8 years old, I saw a nurse at the hospital: tall, kind, and full of compassion. She was helping a woman in need, and I said to my mother, “I want to be like her.” My mother laughed and replied, “You can be if you want to.” That moment left a lasting impression on me.
My journey to becoming a nurse was a long one. I worked in audiovisual production, in a hotel, and even in an association for people with sickle cell disease, while raising my twins (one of whom is disabled). In 2008, at the age of 32, I passed my nursing exams and joined an HIV unit. At first, I didn’t know much about HIV. I studied books at home and learned from my colleagues, but everything changed when Solthis trained me.
Before, we didn’t keep our patients; they would come once and then disappear. Today, we have 250 patients, only two of whom have died, and we are able to keep them! Most of them have an undetectable viral load, including pregnant women, which allows us to protect their newborns. I welcome each patient with a smile, explain what HIV is in their local language, and make sure they follow their treatment. If they miss appointments, I call them. If they are hungry, I find them food.
One day, a nurse asked me, “Can you take care of this patient?” He was seriously ill: extremely underweight, emaciated, HIV-positive, suffering from tuberculosis, and with no one to support him. I told management, “We have to help him.” “ We washed him, gave him his medication, and in just three weeks, he was better. When the nurse saw him again later, she said to me, ”You brought a man back to life!” Today, his viral load is undetectable and he comes back to see us regularly.
The Solthis teams didn’t just train me, they gave me the means to take action. They provided us with refrigerators, furniture, and even redid the tiling in our unit. They taught me how to manage stocks, defend patients’ interests, and make our clinic a “model site.” I am now a trainer myself. I want to study HIV at university so I can help even more. “Solthis has enabled me to achieve a level of excellence,” I tell others. “It has given me the tools to save lives and the hope to continue.”
