People with Aids deprived of critical health services

KATHMANDU, July 30: Failure of a government office in responding with alacrity has left thousands of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) in the country without critical health services. As a fall-out of programs run by international agencies coming to an end, organizations which used to provide such services stopped their programs.



Due to a delay by the National Center for the HIV/AIDS and STD Control (NCASC) in selection of organizations for delivering these services, dozens of care homes and rehabilitation centers have seen all these services vanishing.[break]



Although to give continuity to these programs, donor agencies like DFID, World Bank, AusAid and others have provided assistance through the Pool Fund, which is handled by the government. The donor agencies have provided $139 million to the Pool Fund, of which 15 percent is earmarked for HIV/AIDS sectors.



With this fund, NCASC is supposed to carry out programs run in the past by the donor agencies. NCASC was asked to carry out the programs since January this year but so far it has not able to even select the organizations to deliver the services.



"We have written to the donor agencies to extend their ongoing programs for two months," said NCASC Director Dr Ramesh Kharel.



Kharel said PLWHAs have been severely affected after dozens of organizations stopped providing services.



For resuming the services, NCASC has identified some organizations and sent their names to the World Bank. "We will start financial bidding after we get no-objection letter from the World Bank," he added. But the bidding process itself will take two months, after which the programs will resume.



NCASC said programs of 44 organizations in the country have been halted since July 15 after financial assistance provided by the UK-Department for International Development (DFID) ended and the process to release Pool Fund money to the organizations for continuity of the services got delayed.



DFID had provided financial assistance for health services meant for PLWHAs such as harm reduction programs, packages for injecting drug user, comprehensive package for MSM (men who have sex with men), and comprehensive package for sex workers since 2006. The assistance ended in mid-July.



The biggest problem faced by PLWHAs right now is that they are not able to get blood from the Blood Bank.



In the past, DFID had provided financial assistance to the Red Cross for providing free blood to PLWHAs under a program called Safe Blood Program.



"Safe Blood Program has stopped and most of the HIV positive people are not able to pay for blood," Basanta Chhetri, representative of Nava Kiran Plus, an organization working PLWHAs, said.



Chhetri said that ailing PLWHAs need close observation by doctors for a long time and hospitals do not have sufficient beds for such patients. Therefore, there is an urgent need for care homes.



"Most of the care homes have been closed, and hundreds of infected patients are suffering," he added.



Bishnu Sharma, a Management Officer of the Richmond Fellowship, said thousands of people are at risk of HIV infection after harm reduction programs have been stopped. Sex workers are no longer getting free condoms while injecting drug users are not getting syringes.

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