Mainstreaming Care and Support Services in Government Sector Medical Institutions: Salem District, Tamil Nadu

NEW: Dissemination Meeting, Salem

Background: In collaboration with the USAID-funded AIDS Prevention and Control (APAC) project of VoluntaryHealth Services, Chennai, SAATHII has initiated intensive efforts to mainstream HIV care and supportwith the government sector medical and public health institutions of Salem. The primary aim of this project is to increase the access to quality care and treatment services to HIV positive individuals in Salem.

• To develop a cadre of core-trainers in HIV care-support-treatment from medical and paramedical streams of Salem's government sector institutions
• With the aid of the core trainers, the project aims to train up to 200 physicians and 800 paramedical staff from primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in the district
• To assess patterns of health-care seeking behavior of people living with HIV/AIDS in the district
• To mobilize support for primary health centers from stakeholders such as local government leaders, influential community members, public and private health-care providers, and civil-society organizations.

To establish sound documentation and reporting systems to consolidate information, assess impact, and facilitate replication and scale-up of the program.

Activities and Accomplishments: A team comprising two project coordinators, a training manager, two documentation officers, six on-site supervisors, has been carrying out the activities from a field office established at Salem in Sept 2006.

As of December 31, 2006, the following events and activities have been carried out:

Photos of taluk coordination meetings may be viewed here. We are conducting surveys as summarized below, and are at the stage of completing data collection.

Challenges:

We have encountered some challenges, as described below -

1. Scheduling: obtaining required permission from the district level health authorities (Dean of the Medical College, Deputy Director of Health Services and Joint Director of Medical Services) for each set of training poses challenges to scheduling, because of conflicts with the VARUMMUN KAPPOM THITTAM (VKT) of the state government. VKT aims to conduct a series of medical camps across the district for the next two and half years and several doctors and paramedics get posted to the VKT camps. This issue was unforeseen during the planning and initiation of the CSS project.

2. The pulse polio camp in the second week of January also delayed some training for paramedical staff.

3. The training programs were originally proposed to be conducted at the taluk level. This proposal was not well received by the participants as many of them are based at Salem town and commute to their sites. They expressed a preference to have the trainings at Salem town.

4. Core trainers – We selected core trainers from each specialty and more from the medical college so as to get them for future training programs. These individuals were trained through the 'Training of Trainers' program. However, many of them are being deputed to government medical camps under the VKT scheme, and are not available to function as resource persons. Only five of the TOT participants are functioning as resource persons at present, and other resource persons have to be recruited from elsewhere.

For more information on this project, contact Dr. L. Ramakrishnan at lramakrishnan2004@gmail.com.