HIV/Aids is a huge issue in India. The figures are staggering in such a burgeoning population - in 2008, it was estimated that some 2.5m HIV/AIDS sufferers in India were recorded. The government has a commitment to providing first line drugs but often with little success … the education, the supervision and the other supportive factors needed are often missing at the point of delivery and this can render treatment ineffective. The individual patient histories are tear-jerkingly moving – so often the circumstances around the contraction of the disease being so unnecessary. And, in some cases, husband, wife and child affected ….
Calcutta Rescue has been working with HIV/AIDS since 2004; and from the Tala Park Clinic since 2007. It operates as a designated HIV Clinic under the close personal supervision of CR’s founder, Dr Jack, once a week (currently Thursday afternoons). This HIV/AIDS health education programme still forms an integral part of CR’s IEC (Information Education and Communication) and is primarily a treatment clinic.
CR has done the required networking with the School of Tropical Medicine (STM) in Kolkata, the pioneer Institute in the State in the management of HIV/AIDS patients and the Medical College Hospital of the Government of West Bengal. Via these two bodies and other service providers, patients are referred, often ‘unofficially’, for investigation and treatment. STM does provide some first and second line ART drugs to HIV/AIDS patients, as well as counselling, but is unable to treat all. Patients come not just from Kolkata but from all over West Bengal, many travelling great distances to avail themselves of CR’s treatment. We are their only hope unless they are in the Mumbai or Assam regions where Doctors without Borders offer a limited service. We supply the expensive second line ART drugs, as well as a few first line ART drugs that are not available to certain patients via Government hospitals. At present, we are catering to the needs of some 70 HIV patients.
The HIV Clinic, primarily a treatment Clinic, provides the following services :
