AIDS counsellors are in need of aid

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Aids counsellors are in need of aid

Deepa Suryanarayan / DNASaturday, December 5, 2009

Mumbai: Every time he coughs, a chill runs down Nilesh Bhere's spine. He is

scared because working as a counsellor with the Mumbai District Aids Control

Society (MDACS) he has seen colleagues contact tuberculosis and succumb to it.

" Tuberculosis is a job hazard for us. Four of my fellow counsellors have

succumbed to the disease in the past two years, " Bhere said.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly infective disease. At least one-third of the

patients having Aids have TB as well. So, counsellors treating Aids patients run

the risk of contacting TB. But they are neither supplied protective gear, such

as masks and gloves, nor do they have medical insurance, Bhere said.

Six months ago, Shanta Dhasal (name changed), a technician who worked at the

anti retroviral therapy (ART) centre at Sion Hospital, had to quit her job.

Three months' pregnant at that time, she found out that she had contacted spinal

tuberculosis. She underwent an abortion, and have not returned to work.

A hike in salary, which has been pegged at Rs6,500 per month since 2007, and

better working conditions are the two major demands for which over 2,500

counsellors and technicians across the state have gone on strike from December

1. Aids counsellors from all over India have joined the stir.

" Repeated complaints made to the authorities of the MDACS have come to no

avail, " Rupesh Bhalerao, secretary of the Maharashtra Rajya Aids Niyantrana

Karmachari Sanghatana, said. Dr SS Kudalkar, project director, MDACS, countered

that no such allegation had ever been made to him. " I have never received a

complaint from anyone. Serious action would have been taken if such complaints

had reached us, " he said.

With the labour union and the authorities at loggerheads, free and anonymous

HIV/Aids counselling and testing have come to a standstill. The ART centre at

Nair Hospital, where some 250 people used to jostle for the counsellors'

attention almost every day, has been deserted for the past four days.

" Each counsellor needs to spend at least 30 minutes with a patient for the

pre-test counselling, It takes an hour for the tests to be done. If the result

is positive, the counsellor has to spend another hour with the patient to help

him/her cope with the shock, " Kiran Shah, another Aids counsellor, said.

Performance-based salary hike for the counsellors is said to be another bane. It

makes them focus more on the number of patients attended to, and affects the

quality of counselling.

Kudalkar said that the rate of attrition among counsellors and technicians was

very high. " They are hired on a contractual basis.

So, whenever there is a better opportunity, they quit. We have to constantly

conduct training programmes as seasoned hands seldom stay for long. That is why

we have invited applications for the vacant posts, " he said

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_aids-counsellors-are-in-need-of-aid_132020\

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