Clinical nursing and midwifery education in the pandemic age

The COVID‐19 pandemic has disrupted clinical nursing and midwifery education. This disruption has long‐term implications for the nursing and midwifery workforce and for future healthcare responses to pandemics. Solutions may include enhanced partnerships between schools of nursing and midwifery and health service providers and including schools of nursing and midwifery in preparedness planning. These suggestions notwithstanding, we call upon national and international nursing and midwifery bodies to study how to further the clinical education of nurses and midwives during pandemics and other times of crisis.

Towards a definition of orphaned and vulnerable children

The HIV epidemic presents challenges including orphans and a large mass of children rendered vulnerable by the epidemic and other societal forces. Focus on orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) is important, but needs accurate definition. Twelve focus group interviews of service providers, leaders in these communities, OVC and their caretakers were conducted at six project sites across Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe to extend this definition. The loss of a parent through death or desertion is an important aspect of vulnerability. Additional factors leading to vulnerability included severe chronic illness of a parent or caregiver, poverty, hunger, lack of access to services, inadequate clothing or shelter, overcrowding, deficient caretakers, and factors specific to the child, including disability, direct experience of physical or sexual violence, or severe chronic illness. Important questions raised in this research include the long-term implications for the child and community, and the contribution of culture systems.

Aids and the elderly Tswana: the concept of pollution and consequences for AIDS prevention

A study of elderly people in a village in southern Botswana is presented in this article. An argument is made for more in depth understanding of the role of elderly people in relation to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It is demonstrated how Tswana indigenous medical ideology is behaviourally expressed in ways that identify elderly people as a group that may be at risk of catching and spreading HIV/AIDS. Through their position as respected members of the community, elderly people may also be a resource group in the struggle for AIDS prevention.