Botswana Baylor Trust
Botswana-Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence Trust (Botswana-Baylor Trust) is a national general care and treatment facility that provides services in Gaborone, Botswana. We serve children, adolescents, and young adults and their families from around the country. Our services include treatment for HIV and associated infections and now extend to oncology care and treatment for patients nationally. Also, we act as a major research hub contributing valuable information to the international HIV and oncology communities.
Botswana-Baylor Trust is a public-private partnership between the government of Botswana and Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatrics AIDS Initiative, which was launched in June 2003. The Center of Excellence, the first of its kind on the African continent, is located on the campus of the Princess Marina Hospital, the largest tertiary care referral hospital in Botswana. Botswana-Baylor Trust provides free-of- charge, state-of-the-art pediatric HIV, oncology, and blood disorder care, treatment, and support to children, adolescents, and their families at the main clinic in Gaborone and through decentralized outreach services across the country. Botswana-Baylor Trust is a leader in the field of pediatric HIV and cancer care in Botswana, the Southern Africa region, and beyond.
The Texas Children’s Global HOPE (Hematology-Oncology Pediatric Excellence) program has partnered with Botswana-Baylor Trust to improve the care of children with cancer and blood disorders in Botswana since 2007. The pediatric hematology and oncology program is located at Princess Marina Hospital and offers comprehensive services and health professional training.
In 2009, Botswana-Baylor Trust received the Vision 2016 Award for making “a significant contribution toward building a compassionate, just and caring nation.”
At A Glance
Location:
Founded:
BUDGET (USD):
EMPLOYEES:
Patients:
Professionals TRAINED:
Gaborone, Botswana
2003
3.2 Million
90
5,117
222
*The data reported covers our work in the 2022 fiscal year.
Notable Programs
Paediatric Infectious Disease Clinic
The Paediatric Infectious Disease Clinic (PIDC) at Botswana-Baylor Trust provides HIV testing, treatment, care, and support services to children, adolescents, and their families. Our current patient load is roughly 2,490 active patients, most of whom receive follow-up care every three months as recommended.
Comprehensive Care and Support for Orphan & Vulnerable Children Project
Botswana has a growing population of orphans, estimated at 6.28% of its entire population, according to the 2011 National Population Census. Botswana-Baylor Trust implemented the Botswana Comprehensive Care and Support project in six PEPFAR priority districts (Kweneng East, Gaborone, South East, Mahalapye, Kgatleng, Southern, and Kanye) with the PCI-Botswana serving as the main implementer. The project aims to improve the health, well-being, and safety of these children and their families through direct service delivery, referral, and networking, and through capacity building for orphan and vulnerable children service providers. Botswana-Baylor Trust’s role in this project is to provide care and support services to these children living with HIV, from birth to 17 years old, and their families. The project covered just over 4,000 clients comprising an average of 2,250 people living with HIV per quarter between July 2019 and June 2020.
Teen Club
Teen Club is a monthly peer support group established in 2005 for HIV-positive adolescents who are between 13-19 years old. Teen Club empowers youths to build positive relationships, improve their self-esteem, and acquire life skills through peer mentorship, adult role modeling, and structured activities. Teen Club members are all HIV-positive and fully disclosed. The main Teen Club site is the Baylor Bristol Myers Squibb Phatsimong Adolescent Centre in Gaborone, which hosts about 160 teens on the last Saturday of each month. Botswana-Baylor Trust also supports teen clubs at other satellite sites in Botswana. Active Teen Club attendance stood just below 588 across the 18 sites in the past year. Teen Club was made possible through funding from PCI-Botswana and UNICEF.
Collaborative African Genomics Network (CAfGEN)
The mission of the CAfGEN study, part of the H3Africa Consortium, is to create a collaborative, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, inter- and intra- country network of scientists, clinicians, and researchers who use genomics approaches to study gene/pathogen interactions for HIV/AIDS, its co- morbidities, and other diseases among diverse pediatric African populations. Begun in 2014, CAfGEN has accomplished most of its aims during the first phase of funding and now is on the second phase of the project, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Physician Outreach Program
The outreach program aims to strengthen the capacity of peripheral health facilities across Botswana to optimize treatment and care services for HIV infected children, adolescents, and young adults through the clinical mentorship of healthcare providers. The outreach team composed of a nurse prescriber and physician visits the outreach sites once per month. During the visits, the team consults and supports patients with virological failure; attends to other patients that require special care in the IDCC and onwards; and conducts side-by-side mentoring of medical officers, nurse prescribers, and other healthcare professionals. Also, didactic sessions are structured around the fundamentals of pediatric and adolescent HIV treatment and care. A total of 693 patient consultations were conducted.
Fear Forgotten
A father of a Botswana Baylor Trust patient looks back at some of his challenges in caring for his son and how Baylor has supported him over the years.
My child started coming to Botswana Baylor Trust in 2009. At first, I didn’t know what was wrong with him. He had wounds in his ears and lost a lot of weight. His mother and I were separated at this point, and she had not told me that she was sick. I took the child to live with me and brought him to Baylor. When we first got here, the Botswana Baylor Trust staff examined my child and told me that he is HIVpositive. They started him on treatment as part of the BANA Trial. He began to get better and gain back the lost weight.
“There is so much love and the staff just know how to work with kids and create a welcoming environment.”
I disclosed to him when he was 10 years old. We talked about it, and I took him for counseling. Even now, he goes for counseling at Botswana Baylor Trust and because of that he doesn’t hide his medication. Sometimes he even reminds me that it is time for him to take his pills! Also, he now understands HIV and can even explain it to others.
At one point my son was malnourished and that was very hard, but Botswana Baylor Trust gave him food supplements which helped. After this, I was able to start buying the food myself. The biggest challenge of being a caregiver of an HIV-positive adolescent is if you are not working the child cannot eat healthy because you cannot afford to buy the food. However, I am now working so I no longer have that challenge.
Everyone at Botswana Baylor Trust works extremely hard. They consistently give me reports on how my son is doing and whenever someone launches a complaint, they sit down with that individual and talk through it with them. The staff come to work very early so that the patients don’t have to wait long. They even prioritize seeing school kids so that the kids can go back to school and write their exams. The staff at Botswana Baylor Trust are not just focused on the patients’ physical health but also care about other aspects of their life such as academics, mental health, and social relationships.
The doctors are very patient with the kids and treat them with respect. There is so much love and the staff just know how to work with kids and create a welcoming environment. I do not fear anything for my son’s future. I think that he lives like anyone else, and HIV does not define him. I think that if all clinics were like Botswana Baylor Trust , there would be good results everywhere.
Featured Videos
leadership/Management Team
Mogomotsi Matshaba, M.B.B.Ch.
Executive Director
Mrs. Olekantse Molatlhegi
Finance and Administration Manager
Mrs. Naomi Mochabo
Executive Secretary
Ontibile Tshume
Clinic Manager
PARTNERS
Government of Botswana: Botswana Ministry of Health and Wellness, Ministry of Basic Education
Global Communities
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
H3Africa
Novo Nordisk Haemophilia Foundation
Allan & Gill Gray Foundation
University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)
University of Botswana (UB)
UNICEF Botswana
Mascom Wireless Proprietary Limited
BIPAI and its network of Centers of Excellence that have saved a generation of children and young mothers from the ill effects of and possibly death from HIV/AIDS.