Dr. Margaret Hardman PDF Print E-mail

Dr Margaret Hardman has been working in rural areas for more than 30 years, and about 14 years ago, when she realised how big the HIV and AIDS epidemic could become, she started a home-based care programme in the Masoyi tribal areas of Mpulmalanga with Lucy Ngobeni, a local respected community worker. It was modelled on the successful programmes she had visited in Zimbabwe and Uganda.

She soon recognised the importance of medical back up for home-based care, and in 2001 started the AIDS Care Training and Support (ACTS) Community Clinic in White River with the support of a pharmaceutical company. This clinic provides a continuum of quality care and support to HIV-infected patients, plus Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT), medical assessment and specialist care. 

“The clinic has been very busy today,” said Dr Hardman when we contacted her. But as the staff has seen many thousands of patients since it opened seven years ago, it is probably like that every day. The Clinic has trained local people to be counsellors and facilitators. These people offer individual counselling and run around 20 support groups on different days for various sectors of the community. Volunteer caregivers go out every day to provide home-based care to patients in their homes.

“People in their 20s don’t want to die, but we had no antiretroviral drugs to keep them alive until late 2003,” recalled Dr Hardman. “We got so desperate when we treated the opportunistic diseases, but the patients died anyway.” The clinic now has around 1,400 patients on antiretroviral medication, and others, who are desperate for help, keep pouring in. The antiretroviral drugs have made a huge difference and instead of signing two death certificates a day, Dr Hardman now signs about two a month. Her mission, she says, is to keep mothers alive so they don’t leave orphans behind.


Dr Margaret Hardman says the patients are so grateful that they creep into her heart and this makes her job rewarding. However the additional fundraising and administrative workload is now so great that she would like to hand over her job to a younger doctor. But that probably won’t happen for another few years, which will be a relief to everybody at the ACTS Community Clinic, as she is such a source of inspiration.


The ACTS Community Clinic has been at the forefront of AIDS care and management since it opened, and is recognised as a ‘Best Practice’ model in this field. Doctors, nurses, clerics and community workers now come from all over the world to train at the clinic, or work as volunteers.

Dr Margaret Hardman can be contacted on 013 751 1515 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; or you can visit www.actsclinic.com. The ACTS Community Clinic is featured in the AIDSbuzz Directory and under Training Organisations.