The Hindu : Front Page : HIV patients need better healthcare

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
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HIV patients need better healthcare

L. Renganathan

KARUR: Karur district needs better health care and support facilities for its growing HIV positive population. The fledgling Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) Centre should be strengthened into a bedded facility and become fully operational.

Also, there is subtle and sometimes overt discrimination of the affected people when they come for treatment at Government hospitals; it is more pronounced in rural health centres. Since a vast majority of the affected people are poor, they find it difficult to overcome the social stigma and earn their daily bread. The State Government should come forward to help us with jobs to have a regular source of income, at least to keep ourselves afloat with nutritious food, president of Karur District Network of Positives, K. Padmavathy told The Hindu on the eve of Candle Day, observed on Wednesday to remember the dead.

Patients who go to the nearby Namakkal centre are being turned back by officials, who point out that already there was an ART Centre in Karur. Ms. Padmavathy said that there was also a need for the establishment of a childcare centre for the hapless children of dead or alive positives and also for the positive children.

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