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Ashok Raina
Kangra, March 17
With advent of Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) in 1987 and subsequent medical advances such as Test and Treat approach, AIDS has changed from a fatal life-threatening infection to chronic manageable illness. However, the benefit of the advances was not being really passed on to the needy due to sloppy implementation of the National AIDS Programme.
Twenty years after the first case of AIDS in HP came to light in 1992 from Hamirpur, services for patient treatment are far from satisfactory. Life of a patient hangs by a thread with the ART Centers functioning without doctors.
At the ART Centre in HP at Dr RPGMC Kangra at Tanda, patients are being treated by nurses. Though national guidelines exist to treat patients, most of the deaths are from opportunistic infections, leading to high death rate among AIDS patients in the state.
The ATC Medical Officer resigned in May 2012 after getting better placement under TB control programme. Since then the post has not been filled. Sources say as the salary is low, the past, even if advertised, is unlikely to be filled.
Dr Bhanu Awasthi, Principal, Dr Rajinder Prasad Govt. Medical College, Tanda, confirmed that the post is lying vacant for the last so many years. However, Dr Gurudutt, Nodal officer of medicine department, has been given the additional charge and he was looking after the ART center. He said that this was purely a temporary arrangement for providing service to the AIDS patients.
There are over 1,100 AIDS patients on treatment, whose life is in peril for want of specialized medical care. The absence of doctors needed for screening opportunistic infections leads to high death rate. Patients have called upon the government to take steps for filling the post so that quality healthcare can be provided to the patients.
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