A Care Center near the hospital for HIV patients from rural villages.
You can help offer a safe place for HIV patients to stay while in the city for hospital treatment.
Asha Diep (Light and Hope) Crisis Care Center in Kathmandu recently opened and already has 56 regular clients. The care center is a clean, safe place for people living with HIV to stay while accessing testing and medical services at the local hospital. It is run by AIDSLink, a partner ministry to OM.
Patients coming to the hospital have to wait a few days for test results and sometimes have to stay in the city for two or more weeks of observation when starting antiretroviral (ART) treatment. They travel many hours, sometimes days, to get to the Care Center. By the time they get to Kathmandu, many have no money left for food or accommodation. If they had to travel back to their homes between getting tested, awaiting results, and being under observation, many would not be able to access medical help, and the journey itself can be arduous for someone who is sick. Since clients return to the Center on a regular basis for follow-up, the Care Center team is able to build into their lives on an ongoing basis, seeing them come to terms with living with HIV, and seeing their health improve. The AIDSLink Nepal team members also make follow-up visits to clients’ homes to check on them, encourage them, or to deliver their medication, saving patients another long trip to the hospital.
Before the Care Center, AIDSLink Nepal helped well over a hundred people access medical treatment by taking them to the hospital, visiting them when they were there, lobbying on their behalf, counseling family members, hosting monthly support meetings, and conducting AIDS awareness programs in villages. The team saw first-hand the long distances patients have to travel to get to hospitals, since HIV treatment and testing is not widely available in Nepal. It became increasingly obvious to the AIDSLink team that they needed to open a center where patients could stay while in the city. Asha Diep is the answer to that need, and is already relieving the burden of many rural Nepal patients with HIV.
The goal is for the quality of life and health to improve for 140 people per year, so counseling, travel, and care center operation cost is $280 per person.
