The Gauteng health department has warned about 6 000 striking HIV counsellors and home-based caregivers that there will be consequences if they do not return to work - but admits there's no guarantee they'll be paid if they do.

The counsellors and caregivers have gone on strike after not being paid for the last four months. The strike means hundreds of people in the province living with HIV are without counselling or home-based care.

Lucky Mokone, a member of a task team representing the counsellors, said: 'At the end of the day they expect each and every person to be at work. How can they go to work without payment? Honestly, we are parents, we are bread-winners.'

He continued, 'When you leave home, people are expecting yopu, and your children expect you to bring bread home. Unfortunately, at the end of the day you come ho,me without anything. Enough is enough. We can't go on like this.'

The counsellors and home-based carers are paid a R1 500 monthly stipend by the provincial health department. Mokone said the department had delayed payment to the NGOs which contracted the caregivers and counsellors. 'They call it a dry season, whereby at the end of the financial year people won't get paid,' he said. 'Sometimes it goes further than that. You'll find that people aren't paid for almost six months. No payment has been made to any of the NGOs.'

Now the strikers are saying that they no longer want to work with the NGOs.

Nomsa Mmope, the chief director of the HIV/AIDS programme in the Gauteng health department , said: 'They want to work independently or alternatively be absorbed into the departmental structure. We were about to sign the contracts of NGOs that we were going to contract (to provide these services) for this finacial year. Then we were stopped by this protest action by the counsellors.'

Mmope continued: 'In some provinces, including KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, home-based carers are public health sector employees. But the Gauteng health department could not afford to absorb people into the system in the current finacial year.'

Asked whether they would be paid if they did so, Mmope said: 'You are putting me in a very difficult position, it's not in my hands. I can do the follow-up and try to request them to speed up the process so that, at least, by the end of the month tehy are paid for the whole three months. Yes they will be paid. But I can't say it will happen at the end of the month.'