That a Supreme Court direction on
opening an anti-retroviral therapy (ART) centre in each district has not
been complied with appears enough to gauge how non-serious the state
government is when it comes to fighting the fatal HIV. Punjab has 22
districts but ART centres have been set up only in seven districts:
Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala, Ludhiana, Pathankot, Bathinda and
Ferozepur.
Each unit has been catering to around 5,000 patients in a month. The NGOs active in the field say the number of patients coming forward for HIV treatment is bound to rise if every district has one ART centre. “Many patients don’t register only because they have to travel to neighbouring districts and then wait in queues for hours,” says an expert.
An affected patient from Patiala laments: “I have to travel 160 km for check-up and medicines. The process has to be repeated every fortnight, which means spending a huge sum on travelling as well as taking an off from my private job.” The need for new centres notwithstanding, the condition of the existing ones is not good either. Most of these have been operating from two-room wards located inside government hospitals.
Tight budget, poor pay structure and an even poorer government support to the existing staff in terms of perks and facilities has only compounded the woes of the employees working in the field in various districts.
A counsellor at an ART department, whose duty is to ensure HIV persons stay in a positive frame of mind before treatment, takes home Rs 8,000 a month. “Can anybody survive with this less money?” quips she, having more than 100 patients to look after daily. “Come anytime in the day and you will find a long queue of patients, with five to six new cases being registered daily,” she adds.
Similarly, a doctor at an ART centre in Punjab is paid a poor Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000, a sum that fails to attract the finest of the talent. “We recently advertised a doctor’s post. Given the money we offered, only one candidate applied,” says a PSACS functionary.
Amid staff crunch and poor infrastructure, patients are the ultimate sufferers. They have to spend an entire day at government centres to meet a doctor. “We can only write to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) for better salaries. Though the hike in the past couple of years has not been on the expected lines, we expect a decent raise this time,” says PSACS additional director Dr Usha Bansal. She says the case has been forwarded to the National Aids Control Organisation, which releases funds and decides on pay hike.
(Concluded)
Each unit has been catering to around 5,000 patients in a month. The NGOs active in the field say the number of patients coming forward for HIV treatment is bound to rise if every district has one ART centre. “Many patients don’t register only because they have to travel to neighbouring districts and then wait in queues for hours,” says an expert.
An affected patient from Patiala laments: “I have to travel 160 km for check-up and medicines. The process has to be repeated every fortnight, which means spending a huge sum on travelling as well as taking an off from my private job.” The need for new centres notwithstanding, the condition of the existing ones is not good either. Most of these have been operating from two-room wards located inside government hospitals.
Tight budget, poor pay structure and an even poorer government support to the existing staff in terms of perks and facilities has only compounded the woes of the employees working in the field in various districts.
A counsellor at an ART department, whose duty is to ensure HIV persons stay in a positive frame of mind before treatment, takes home Rs 8,000 a month. “Can anybody survive with this less money?” quips she, having more than 100 patients to look after daily. “Come anytime in the day and you will find a long queue of patients, with five to six new cases being registered daily,” she adds.
Similarly, a doctor at an ART centre in Punjab is paid a poor Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000, a sum that fails to attract the finest of the talent. “We recently advertised a doctor’s post. Given the money we offered, only one candidate applied,” says a PSACS functionary.
Amid staff crunch and poor infrastructure, patients are the ultimate sufferers. They have to spend an entire day at government centres to meet a doctor. “We can only write to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) for better salaries. Though the hike in the past couple of years has not been on the expected lines, we expect a decent raise this time,” says PSACS additional director Dr Usha Bansal. She says the case has been forwarded to the National Aids Control Organisation, which releases funds and decides on pay hike.
(Concluded)
In need of cure
- Punjab has 22 districts but only seven centres for HIV treatment
- Each centre has been catering to around 5,000 patients in a month
- Most have been operating from two-room wards
Meeting takes stock
Following reports in The
Tribune, an ‘Inter-departmental sensitisation workshop for mainstreaming
HIV’ was organised in Chandigarh on Tuesday. The meeting, held under
the chairmanship of Hussan Lal, Project Director, PSACS, was attended by
13 representatives from 11 departments.
