Chennia: ICU for AIDS patients at VHS hospital

[Guest guest]

ICU for AIDS patients at VHS hospital from today

By Ramya Kannan

Chennai Jan. 16. The nation's first exclusive intensive care unit for

Persons Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) will be inaugurated at the VHS

hospital in the city on January 17. Coming as it does, 15 years after

the first case of HIV infection was detected in Chennai, it is a

significant milestone in terms of medical care for the PLWHA.

The two-bed unit, being set up by the YRG Centre for AIDS Research

and Education, will serve as the first such-dedicated unit serving

the PLWHA. It will be equipped with a ventilator and suction

equipment, state-of the-art laboratory facilities and doctors will be

present round the clock.

There is a rather tragic prelude to the setting up of this centre.

On April 19, 2002, the then president of Indian Network of Positive

Persons, Ashok Pillai, died because he was denied ventilator support

when he lapsed into convulsions. That evening, there were many who

felt that Ashok could have lived if only the facility had been

provided to him at the right time. Before Ashok Pillai, there were

countless other unchronicled deaths — as persons who made bold to

declare their `positivity' were denied ventilator support, again and

again.

" We get the same treatment everywhere, be it government hospitals or

the tertiary care set up. If we declare that we are HIV positive, we

can rest assured that we will be shown the door. ICU care is simply

not available to us, " says P. Kausalya of the Positive Women Network

of South India. She recounts incidents where persons were turned away

from the Government General Hospital.

Even if the patient does not reveal the HIV status, the mandatory

tests that the hospital will run on him/her will immediately show

that he/she is positive.

" In one such case in 1999, we were told to take the patient home,

as " he was going to die anyway " .

In this context, she welcomes the ICU as a reality that will change

the way PLWHA are treated. " At least now, there is a unit that we can

turn to and be assured that we will be taken care of, " she says.

At the same time, the community of persons living with the infection

make it clear that it is important to broadbase strategies to handle

medical care facilities in the State.

" Intensive care facilities must be made available to all. If proper

scientific procedures are followed to clean and sterilise hospital

equipment, using the same equipment for PLWHA will not create

problems. But, poor maintenance will lead to transmission of other

infections too, " says a representative of INP+.

It has been the argument of activists that all procedures must be

made available to all, without discrimination merely on grounds of

seropositivity.

http://www.thehindu.com/stories/2003011702900300.htm