Quality Healthcare to70000 patients in Rural India

Rajabai and her husband Balbhiro were ecstatic to know about her pregnancy in 2009. But their happiness did not last long, as Rajabai was detected HIV positive from the medical report of the government hospital just few months into her pregnancy. She was referred to PRIDE's SPRASH hospital by a friend and she decided to travel far to ensure a safe pregnancy.With proper precaution, psychological support and guidance from the doctor, she gave birth to a baby boy with zero HIV infection.

Unfortunately , her husband succumbed to HIV due to irregularity in his medical treatment after which her in-laws rejected her due to her HIV status. Rajabai was left alone with the responsibility of her son all by herself.

To survive, she started working as a labor in a farm. Where she met Rajendra and later began a relationship with. She never revelaed about her HIV status to him. Rajendra got to know of Rajabai’s status when she got her pregnant with his child. Knowing this he left her and ran off to Pune with his family and never came back. This came as a tragic shock to her. She did not cope well with this incident and tried to commit suicide,  planning to kill her new born baby due to societal pressure and threat.

She was in a very poor and depressed state when she enrolled into PRIDE India SPARSH Rural hospital services and went to the Community Care Center (CCC). The project provided medical care, appropriate counseling and pychosocial support.

“I thank god that I found a family in SPARSH with whom I can express my feelings freely. I am very happy and thankful to them for making me feel at home. I am alive beacuse of you” says Rajabai with a smile on her face, that we at PRIDE India wish never fades away.

(All names changed to protect privacy)

About the HIV/AIDS programme at PRIDE India:

PRIDE India’s programme for People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) was established with the view to improve health status of PLHIV and reintegrate them into the community. This project has being providing services through two channels, Community Care Centre (CCC) and Care and Support Centre (CSC)

1. CCC provides services through an out- patient department (OPD) and and in patient department (IPD) in the hospital, it includes quality medical services, nutrition support and counseling to PLHIV and their family members.  OPD services where patient can access non-residential medical facilities and IPD services where patient can get residential medical services as per the health status of patients.
2. CSC or the outreach services included sensitization programmes, tracking on loss to follow-up of PLHIV and linking them to Anti-Retroviral treatment, home visit, focus group discussions, linking them to social welfare schemes and other local organizations for support.

Since inception 995 PLHIV have benefitted through our CCC programme, out of which 984 are active on services and 11 died due to opportunistic infections

Links:

• PRIDE India website