Pre and post test counselling at private laborataries

[Guest guest]

Dear eFORUM Members,

This is about pre and post counselling at laboratary levels.

I discussed with few laboratories in our city about pre and post counselling

while testing blood for HIV but everybody told me that -

1. patient is referred by the doctor. So counselling is doctor’s

responsibility.

2. Reports are directly sent to the doctors- not to the patient.

3. When patient comes on his own to detect blood for HIV, report is not

disclosed to patient, he is told to consult doctor.

4. So pre and post counselling on laboratory level is not possible in this

situation.

[Could some body tell us about the NACO policy or guidelines

on HIV testing by the private labs..Mod]

Dr Anagha Kulkarni

Kulkarnianagha@...

[Guest guest]

Hullo!

My reaction to this is:

Why are we passing on the buck to the others.

While a doctor refers to a patient for test must be telling/should be

telling for what is a test being conducted. at thte lab.

Also it is important that a counselling : pre-test and subsequently

post-test counselling must be provided. Who is taking the informed

consent the doctor or is is it done at the lab. Before taking the blood

sample the informed cosent must be taken. it is at this stage pre-test

counselling is also provided. These are important ethical

responbsibilities and the awareness to these issues is unfortunately

very limited.

It is time that ethical issues be an important aspect

of training and not pre-test and post-test counselling perse.

There are are a lot of issues involved in these.

NACO already has a national testing policy.

Nita Mawar, M.Sc., Ph. D.

Assistant Director: SBR Unit,

National AIDS Research Institute

73G-B.I.E., PB 1895, PUNE 411026 India

Ph.: 091-020-7121072 (O), 7129923®, Fax 7121071

Email: nitamawar@...