The Background

The Global Natural Healthcare Trust (GNHCT) as we are known is a UK based registered charity. Our founder is a Cornish woman called Annette Montague-Thomas. Annette has over 25 years experience in Africa where she has worked for UNICEF in Nairobi in Kenya, and in the past 9 years has been assisting young children who are afflicted and affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa.

Here in the UK Annette runs The Herbal Clinic in Truro and The Dorset Herbal Clinic in Shaftesbury. She travels out to the project each and every month.

We are based on The Orange Farm informal settlement which is about one and a half hours South of Johannesburg. The settlement is home to over 4 million Africans of varying tribes. The settlement is not only the largest in South Africa, but in the whole of Africa. It is fair to state that not even one quarter of the residents have any work and many are surviving at near starvation level.

They live in abject poverty with homes that are usually no more than shacks made out of rusty corrugated iron sheets, crudely put together on tiny plots. None of the homes has a sewerage system and toilet facilities are primitive to say the least. Many of the homes don't even have running water.

The Charity

The GNHCT is the only team on the settlement that visits the sick on a regular basis, a great deal of responsibility lands on our shoulders.

Every patient is treated FREE of charge and every patient is perscribed FREE natural medicines. All patients are then monitored by a healthcare support scheme that GNHCT help setup in 2001. The healthcare workers are not qualified nurses but women who have received basic training from the South Africa Department of Health. They get a small stipedend of £60 a month and work 6 days a week.

We work with over 200 different varieties of medical herbs, and what doesn't grow we have to import. To date and on average we import around £12,000 of medical herbs per year to the project from the U.K

The home visit patients that we treat are soon able and strong enough to visit "The GNHCT Holistic Treatment Centre". Others sadly weaken and really need 24/7 care. Sadly, some patients are already beyond our help.

In a family, if both parents die, the child or children are left alone. Sometimes, family relatives do take in the children but others have no one and are left alone. Some children when we find them are so traumatized they don't speak for weeks.

Our charity has a 120 acre farm, where we grow several varieties of our own medical herbs. We have turned the original farm house into a much needed clinic which has a full dispensary and will have a blood testing laboratory. The farm will be cultivated and produce fruits and vegetables to reactivate our meals on wheels service for those deemed financially inept or too sick to find food.

Our major concern is the vast numbers of young children that are being brought to us, who are orphaned with little or no chance of a future. We started with just seven small children; nine years on we have a foster care system which cares for several thousand children.

This charity has been active in South Africa since 2001, long before the anti-retrovirals (ARV's) were being rolled out. Without the help of this charity who has given FREE time and medical treatment, many people would have lost there lives.

We are clear to state that we DO NOT have a cure for HIV/AIDS, however we are able to prolong people lives by strengthing the bodily systems using medical herbs, which then brings the patient up to optium health.

GNHCT as we are known is well respected within The Orange Farm community. Over the years the demands on the Holistic Treatment Centre have been vast. Many of the team have had to put in 18hr days.

Patients come from all over South Africa and at times we have seen patients from other African countries.