2.5 M HIV Patients to get NREGS cards

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2.5m HIV patients to get NREGS cards

6 Aug 2008,

NEW DELHI: For 2.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS, mostly shunned by

society, the Centre has decided to play employer by promising to provide them

with job cards and employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

(NREGA).

In addition, around one lakh people with HIV, who are receiving anti-retroviral

therapy (ART) at 174 centres across the country, would be treated as belonging

to the below poverty line (BPL) category, ensuring them 35 kg of foodgrain every

month under the Antyodaya Yojana (AAY).

These promises were part of the 19-point proposal made public for the first time

by the Centre before the Supreme Court on Tuesday to make the lives of HIV

positive people a lot better.

Responding to SC's earlier directive, additional solicitor general Gopal

Subramaniam told a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices

P Sathasivam and J M Panchal that states and union territories would be asked

" to ensure that all HIV positive people be provided with a job card and

employment in accordance with the NREGA scheme " .

It would also be ensured that " every HIV positive person on ART shall be

provided with an Antyodaya Yojana card " , he said. Under the AAY scheme,

every BPL family is provided with 35 kg of foodgrain (wheat at Rs 2 per kg and

rice at Rs 3 per kg) per month.

When counsel for petitioner NGOs, Colin Gonslaves, termed the announcement as

revolutionary, the Bench asked the Centre to incorporate it as an office order

and send it to all state and UT governments.

Promising to increase the number of ART centres — providing free treatment and

run under National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco) — from 174 to 650 by 2010,

Subramaniam said second line treatment for HIV positive people was in the pilot

stage and would soon be made available to the needy.

All doctors and nurses in the public and private sector would be directed to

immediately familiarise themselves and comply with the protocols and policies

prepared by NACO, which would be made part of the teaching curriculum, the

Centre said.

" All doctors, nurses and hospital staff, whether in public or private sector,

shall treat HIV positive people in a professional and humane manner, treating

them always with dignity and care. No doctor or nurse shall refuse to treat them

on account of their positive status. In treating them, there shall be no

discrimination or stigma whatsoever, " it said.

In an important remedy for HIV positive people seeking treatment, the Centre

said, " The Medical Council of India and the consumer courts are to take strict

view of private practitioners who take advantage of illiteracy and poverty to

prescribe wrong or unnecessary drugs or charge exhorbitant amounts.. Irrational

prescriptions using wrong dosage or wrong combinations shall be dealt with

severely. "

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