Grievence redressal mechanisms at ART centers

[Guest guest]

Grievance redressal mechanism in ART centers

 

According to NACO’s Operational Guidelines for ART centers (March 2008) there

should be grievance redressal mechanism at every link ART center and a person of

senior rank, working full time in the organization should be appointed as the

complaints officer, who shall, on a day-to-day basis, deal with complaints

received from an aggrieved person or an authorized representative of such person

for addressing issues of stigma and discrimination.

NACO has stated a system for grievance redressal mechanism with an elaborate

plan for taking actions in its GIPA policy guidelines for HIV programmes (2010).

The roles and responsibilities have been stated at national, state and district

level which include members from PLHIV network, GIPA coordinator/ DAPCU

coordinator, GIPA focal point NACO etc.

 

Unfortunately these mechanisms seem to remain only on paper.

From our interactions with the counselors at some of the ART centers in

Maharashtra and from the patients who have been receiving treatment at these

centers we realized that even the staff working at these centers is un-aware

about any such mechanism.

Patients, due to lack of knowledge about these mechanism and also due to fear of

further discrimination are inclined to refrain from reporting incidences of

discrimination publicly. Therefore there are very few cases of discrimination

getting reported.

 

In spite of the efforts from the government and non-government organizations,

discrimination of HIV infected people in health care settings is still a

reality.

Denial of care, discrimination and poor quality of services to HIV infected

people is a common place in private as well as government facilities.

In the government ART centers, though NACO has ensured that all HIV infected

people coming to the centre will be ‘treated’ (receive medicines) it has not

been successful in ensuring that they will not be ‘mis-treated’ (receive

care with dignity).

 

There is an urgent need to increase awareness among patients about these

mechanisms and create an enabling environment for them to use these mechanisms.

There is a need to take proactive steps to address the issue.

 

First step towards this could be to display this information about available

grievance redressal mechanism prominently at the ART center.

Senior ART medical officers, counselors and PLHIV coordinators should also be

informed and sensitized on this issue. The displays should be prepared in local

language and display contact information.

Such a charter of rights of PLHIV can also be printed in the patient’s

treatment diaries and local contact information about such information be filled

in them. PLHIV should also be told about the information in counseling sessions.

 

Without such proactive steps protecting the rights of people living with HIV and

providing them treatment with dignity would remain a goal far from its

realization.

 

We also understand that such a lack of respect of rights of PLHIV are a

component of overall lack of respect of rights of patients.

Attempts have been made in the past for developing patient's rights charters and

there has been advocacy to promote the same however there is a long way still to

go.

 

PRAYAS Health Group

Amrita Clinic, Karve Road

Pune 411004 (India)

Tel: 91 20 25441230

Tel/Fax: 91 20 25420337

prayashealth@...

www.prayaspune.org