Re: Tirunelveli: 25 HIV +ve pregnant women go missing

[Guest guest]

Dear forum,

Re: Tirunelveli: 25 HIV +ve pregnant women go missing. The rejoinder for this

report from The Tamilnadu State AIDS control Society is give below

23rd June 2007

The Editor, New Indian Express

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Sir

This is with reference to a news item published in your newspaper, i.e. 23 June

2007, titled, “25 HIV positive women go missing”. We greatly appreciate the role

that your publication has played in consistently taking forward concerns

relating to HIV/AIDS in Tamil

Nadu. However, it is unfortunate that in this instance a serious concern has

been misrepresented. In this regard we would like to state the following:

Under the Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission (PPTCT) Programme initiated

by the Government of Tamil Nadu various services are provided to pregnant

positive women.

In the year 2006 in Tirunelveli district, 92 HIV positive pregnant women

registered with the Government Hospitals for their ante natal check up. Amongst

them, 67 came back for their deliveries to the Government Hospitals. The

remaining 25 women accessed services

mostly from private hospitals. Consequently the data regarding these 25 women is

not readily available. The Health Care Providers can collect this data by

following up with private hospitals. The fact is that it is the data with regard

to these 25 women that is missing and not the women.

We realise that there is always scope for improvement and even as of today

efforts are being made to follow up with women accessing private medical

facilities for deliveries.

One such intensive measure has been to map all the positive pregnant women in

Tamil Nadu and appoint outreach workers in all the 385 blocks to ensure optimum

outreach and follow up. This service will

ensure that all positive pregnant women have access to institutional deliveries

either in a government or private hospital, and that the prescribed dosage of

Nevirapine is administered to the mother and baby

thereby preventing the baby from becoming HIV positive.

Such being the case, we do not expect a publication of your national stature and

repute to misrepresent such a grave issue. I hope that this rejoinder will help

you to present the situation in a factual manner. I request you to publish the

correct facts immediately.

Regards

Sd

Supriya Sahu

Project Director - TANSACS

Murugesan Jagadeesan

e-mail: <jagadeesandr@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

Re: /message/7450

With respect to the above-mentioned subject, it is unfair to state that the 25

HIV +ve pregnant women go missing. TANSACS, a body of government of Tamil Nadu

is doing yeoman service to the HIV +ve pregnant women in the following ways:

1. TANSACS has undertaken a programme called PPTCT (Prevention of Parents To

Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS). Under this programme, all positive mothers are

linked to the NGOs and the respective NGOs follow it up directly with the

positive mothers with respect to their pre-natal, delivery and post-natal care

and support.

2. TANSACS has appointed the District Program Managers who intensely follow up

the PPTCT NGOs vis-a-vis the data collected from the ICTCs (Integrated

Counselling and Testing Centres).

3. TANSACS takes care of each and every positive pregnant women by mapping their

data with that of the follow-up on a day-to-day basis from its Chennai office.

4. All Infrastructure has been created and supported by TANSACS in almost all

Government Headquarters Hospitals, Taluka Hospitals, Block Primary Health

Centres and so on, so that no positive pregnant women are left unattended.

Ultimately, it is the positive pregnant women themselves who decide on their

place of delivery weighing various factors like nearest delivery centres, stigma

and discrimination, mother town for first babies and so on. Such being the

case, it is next to impossible that 25 positive women go missing en masse.

Moreover, I wonder what the author of the article wants to tell the forum.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

Jeyaraj, B.A , PGDCA, D.P, MBA

District Program Manager (DPM)- Tiruvallur

Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS)

Panchayat (Development) Section,

District Collectorate, Tiruvallur - 602 001.

Cell: +91-9840541294

E-MAIL: <tcpcsin@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

Re: /message/7450

Related to the article about 25 +ve ANC missing in Tirunelveli. I want to share

my experiences in counselling (I have seven years experiences in counselling in

STD, VCTC, PPTC and ICTC centres)

We need to improve the quality of counselling services. It is essential for the

client to come back for follow-up. Often there is a heavy client lode in the

councelling centers and there is little for a counsellor to spend with the

client .

In ICTC apparently 30 to 100 clients are presenting daily. If a counsellor need

to give quality counselling he/she came can attend only about 8 pre test

counselling and 8 post test counselling. If a client tested positive the

counsellor need more time to spend with the client to explore her issues.

Lack of time and quality of counselling is the main issues for the poor

follow-up and the missing of +ve ANC.

Ramu Raju

E-mail: <raj5053@...>