Time to focus on HIV support groups in war against epidemic
Quality of life and compliance to treatment are noted to be higher amongst patients within support groups. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
A look at the spending of the national bodies engaged in the fight against the epidemic indicates that most focus on testing, provision of drugs and education.
Every Thursday for the last few years, a group of mostly women has been meeting at the Boma la Tumaini (Shelter of Hope). The Friends Fighting Aids Together, or FRIFAT as the group is known, is one of the few patient support groups for people living with HIV in Loitoktok town.
The men and women encourage each other and the meeting also doubles as an opportunity to find out if members are taking their medicine and any positive or negative changes in their lives. These last two items are particularly important in patients with chronic conditions or on long-term medication.
The recently revealed Kenya Aids Indicator Survey statistics show that HIV infection rates are on the rise after previous good progress made in fighting the epidemic. What is going wrong? Is it time to re-look at existing strategies?.
There are several theories behind this reversing trend. Top on the list is the reduction or withdrawal of donor funding.
Kenya’s HIV strategy is based on three key approaches; increased testing, starting medication as soon as possible and increasing public awareness to reduce transmissions.
These three while important do not take into consideration the patient’s psycho-social situation. One weakness is that these strategies hinge on early entry into treatment programmes and don’t fully follow through on the patient’s day-to-day life.
Poor compliance to medication affects both the patient’s health and increases their infection risk. Quality of life and compliance to treatment are noted to be higher amongst patients within support groups. This indirectly means that such groups are important in the fight.
However, a look at the spending of the national bodies engaged in the fight against the epidemic indicates that most focus on testing, provision of drugs and education. Very few emphasise on the patient support groups.
Yet this could hold better prospects in the fight. In the four months that I interacted with this group, one easily gleans why our approaches may be failing.
One of the members said that her next visit with the doctor is three months away. Her last visit only lasted 10 or so minutes; not enough time to really air out her problems to the doctor. With many patients increasingly joining treatment, availing adequate staff to cater for the rising numbers is important. Health workers overwhelmed by crowded schedules are accused of not “talking” to patients and few programmes support doctors to go to such groups regularly. Cost is given as a major excuse why such support groups cannot be funded.
However on a cost versus benefit analysis, is this the case? Expensive hotel seminars and dinners for stakeholders contribute little to this epidemic’s fight. As with other problematic areas in healthcare, it’s time to prioritise budgeting in the donor agencies and the government. Facilitating such weekly or bi-monthly meetings costs less than treatment for a newly diagnosed patient.
