Main | Conceptualizing the model for the "Adolescent Transition Clinic and Peer Support Program" »
July 10, 2007
Update on the project!
I’ve now been in Kampala, Uganda for over a month, and it’s more than about a time I provide some updates on my work here! To start it has been wonderful to back in Uganda. I was here for four weeks over winter break, working with a rural development NGO in the eastern rural district of Iganga. In Kampala I am working with the Infectious Diseases Institute, or the IDI, which is located in a huge complex including the national referral hospital (Mulago), Makerere University Medical School, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic (formerly part of the IDI), Johns Hopkins-Makerere Collaboration, UCSF-Makerere Collaboration, and more.
The IDI is cited as a model for HIV/AIDS care, treatment, research, and training in Africa; my experience here has done nothing but affirm that for me. The IDI provides free care and antiretroviral/psychosocial treatment for over 10,000(!!) patients, trains doctors from around Africa (thus far from over 22 countries), conducts cutting edge research, and empowers patients to be agents of change in their home communities through innovative initiatives. One of these is the “creativity initiatives”. Because of the high volume of patients receiving care at the IDI, patients have to wait for quite a long time. All patients at the IDI are called ‘Friends’. The queuing system is set up so that patients’ names are not called out; rather each patient is given a number and they see their care providers when their number is posted. During the wait, groups of patients sing and play music, others play board games, other draw and paint, and still others participate in entrepreneurship activities (like making beads and necklaces for small income). This has fostered de-stigmatization and created a community of support: patients can look forward to their visits to the IDI.
That’s the organization I’m working with. What is the project I’m working on?
Before describing the specific project, some background is necessary…
In recent years anti-retroviral treatment has reached more and more HIV-infected children in Uganda, affording them the opportunity to live longer and higher-quality lives. However, as this subset of successfully treated children progresses through late adolescence and into adulthood, they require specialized transitional care to support their unique needs, which the exclusively child- and adult-focused HIV care systems currently in place are unable to meet. At both the IDI (containing the adult infectious diseases clinic) and the PIDC (the pediatric infectious diseases clinic), there is a large subset of HIV-infected adolescents, in the age range of roughly 17-24.
My role this summer has been to lead the team that has been tasked to create a model to provide comprehensive care of the HIV-positive adolescents at the IDI and PIDC. We have named it "The Adolescent Transition Clinic and Peer Support Program". In this model, the unique needs adolescents will be catered to and their overall well-being looked after.
More details to come very soon…
Posted by Vijay Narayan at July 10, 2007 04:34 PM
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