Staying positive while Covid-19-positive is possible

On 16 June, as the country was celebrating a bittersweet Youth Day from the confines of their homes and regulation-cleared workspaces, Eastern Cape local government employee Nontozamo Xozwa started a small support group comprising of Facebook friends who were affected by or infected with Covid-19.

Now, just over a month later, the group, simply named Covid Nineteen Support Group, has ballooned into over 80,000 members from around the world, sharing knowledge and resources among people who were otherwise isolated and in fear of the worst.

Testimonies have since been pouring in from the group of people who have pulled themselves through grueling isolation and healing with the help of members of the support group.

Having worked as an HIV and AIDS coordinator for years in the Amathole District Municipality, Xozwa is no stranger to the perils of stigma, misinformation, and hopelessness in patients diagnosed with a misunderstood disease.

One of her duties is to make sure that there are operational support groups for people affected and infected with HIV and AIDS. Seeing many of her loved ones and colleagues suffer through similar battles in the unknown reality of Covid-19, she decided to start the group, not knowing how massive her impact on its target audience would eventually become.

“During lockdown, I noticed that government was giving all kinds of support for treatment and care, but there was a gap in terms of psycho-social support. Now we are all on lockdown, others are in isolation and quarantine. I thought let me make this platform to give people a space to share how they feel.”

From doctors giving home and pharmaceutical remedies to ease pain and discomfort, to mental health practitioners giving free counsel and support to vulnerable members, this group is replete with inspirational recovery stories from people who joined with no hope of a certain future.

“I feel so good to know that I have been able to reach so many people. What I really wanted to do was to make sure that people know that they are not alone. Support is out there and help is out there and even if you are in isolation, don’t lose hope, stick to the recommendations of the World Health Organisation in terms of making sure you are protecting yourself and others and in the end, you will actually make it.”

Xozwa is inundated with requests for assistance from hundreds of members daily and she is now making a call to those who have resources to help others to join or contact the group Covid Nineteen Support Group at 082 932 5565.

There is no textbook on mental health that could ever have prepared society for the scourge that would be unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic, says renowned psychiatrist Dr Jan Chabalala, who points out that doctors and health practitioners have felt the toll of Covid-19 challenging their sense of security financially and psychologically.

As with the rest of society, though in many ways with greater intensity, doctors have felt paranoia, stigma, and depression settling into their psyche in ways that affect their daily lives.

“I am just coming out of a support group webinar with doctors who are also feeling heightened anxiety of ‘what if I give it to my family and children? What if my patient infects me?’, and the worst thing is ‘what if I end up watching my patient die right in front of me and I have done everything that the books say you are supposed to do?’ Even those books are just general articles and updates that come from time to time. So, for everyone, it is a difficult one.”

As the number of known cases grow exponentially on a daily basis, it was becoming increasingly common for a person to know someone close to them who was infected with the virus. More and more people are inflicted with thoughts of ‘Will I be next? And will I survive?’

The disease has also necessitated or at least caused a degree of paranoia in many civilians who were unsure how deadly the consequences of missing a single part of the numerous Covid-19 hygiene regimens expected of them in various circumstances.

Offering a silver lining in what must be the darkest cloud of our collective lifetimes, Chabalala urges that scientists are working faster than on any other pandemic to bring a vaccine to full development.

“All we have to hold onto is hope and there is hope. The vaccine currently being tested in South Africa, which by the way there are 19 being developed globally, but in South Africa, you can expect it to be available in the next six months.”

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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