Karnataka - Mysore   

Help is not far away for the afflicted

— PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM

Facility: The new block that will be functional at Asha Kirana in Mysore.

MYSORE: Asha Kirana, an institution set up in Mysore to bring a ray of hope for people living with HIV/AIDS in 1997, is now celebrating its 10th anniversary. On the occasion, Asha Kirana Charitable Trust (AKCT) is inaugurating Asha Kirana Hospital’s ‘Bhagavan Mahaveer Jain OPD Block and Vocational Training Centre’ on Saturday.

Originating as a counselling-cum-care clinic for People Living With AIDS (PLWA) in 1997, Asha Kirana evolved into a full-fledged hospital in 2004 with facilities for general health care as well as specialty care for PLWA. Spread over an acre in the outskirts of the city, the hospital is leaving no stone unturned to build awareness to destigmatise the AIDS epidemic. Asha Kirana has been hailed as the first specialised hospital-cum-research institute for HIV/AIDS, the first initiative to offer subsidised HIV testing and free antiretroviral therapy to children with AIDS, the first voluntary and counselling centre, the first health care facility to launch outreach programmes in rural and urban areas and the first day care clinic for PLWA in Mysore region.

Chairman of the trust and noted paediatrician S.N. Mothi told The Hindu that Asha Kirana was providing awareness, voluntary counselling and testing centre (VCT) services and continuum care. He said the centre was being run by the volunteering efforts of social workers and networking doctors. The trust had been conducting awareness initiatives in schools, colleges, paramedical and nursing training schools, industries and villages. Asha Kirana had also sensitised rural-based voluntary organisations and medical colleges about HIV/AIDS and was providing VCT services at the facility, and periodic counselling at TB Hospital, Church of South India Hospital and the Central prison. Asha Kirana provides outpatient care to PLWA with the assistance from a network of consultants who offer destigmatised services on voluntary basis. Developing modern infrastructure and institutional network for preventing, testing and treating HIV/AIDS, providing high-quality care at nominal cost, rehabilitating abandoned women and AIDS orphans and undertaking research of the disease is the mission of the trust, he added.

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