India

Meghnagar, August 25:

The National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) decided last week to expand the function of so-called Link ART Centers (LAC). RMF set up and has been supporting such a center at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital in a public private partnership, which recently received an award as best Link ART Center out of the 5 attached to the main Indore ART Center and is currently treating 44 patients with free antiretroviral drugs supplied by the Government. On Saturday, August 21st, NACO’s data manager from Indore visited our center and was pleased with the thorough recording and reporting.

The expanded role proposed by NACO acknowledges the model of care already provided by Jeevan Jyoti Hospital for more than 200 patients which had been identified with RMF’s support over the past 5 years. The specific LAC services will include enrolling patients into care, pre-ART management including basic investigations and sample collection for CD4 count, following up on patient not yet eligible for ART, screening for HIV-TB co-infection, and tracking of patients who missed appointments. RMF has been supporting these activities which involved taking patients on a weekly basis to 150-km far Indore, a long and expensive journey on bad roads which will become largely redundant under the new program.

NACO has already developed a revised 3-day training module which includes clinical examination for adult and pediatric patients, case discussions in the wards as well as exercises to practice the pill count system, recording and tracking, and RMF will ensure to have the Jeevan Jyoti staff trained as soon as possible. The RMF-Jeevan Jyoti link ART center was inaugurated on July 25th, 2009 and continues to excel in patient care in the form of a public private partnership.