Patients with HIV wait for ARV treatment at a Community Consultation and Assistance Centre in HCM City (Source: VNA)HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Deputy Director of HCM City’s Department of
Health Nguyen Huu Hung has instructed city districts to speed up the opening of
new for patients with HIV.
International aid agencies will stop offering free in the country
for next year.
Insured anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV patients will begin in June
next year once international aid stops, according to the Vietnam Administration
of HIV/AIDS Control.
Seventy-two percent of patients with HIV have health insurance, Hung said,
adding that the city People’s Committee had approved funds for the remaining 27
percent of patients with HIV who cannot afford cards.
“Who will treat them? How will we carry out?” Hung said. “This is the issue to
which we should pay more attention.”
Many representatives of district-level health centres have complained that they
have not been able to set up a general clinic because of a shortage of doctors.
Dr Pham Thi Kim Hoa, head of Can Gio district Health Centre, said there were
not enough available staff to set up the clinics.
Around 110 patients with HIV are being treated at the district’s Community
Counselling and Assistance Centre, Hoa said, adding that the centre has sent
eight of the 110 patients with HIV to the district’s health stations.
The remaining patients with HIV have been sent to the district hospital for
treatment, but the hospital has not provided treatment, even though the city’s
Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention has provided training to the hospital’s doctors.
Dr Phan Thanh Phuoc, head of the District 2 Health Centre, suggested that
instead of general health clinics, the department should allow district-level
hospitals to set up a satellite department for ART treatment under
health insurance.
The Health Department plans to merge all district-level hospitals and health
centres by 2020 in order to solve the shortage of doctors and ensure treatment
for patients with HIV with health insurance.
Thu Duc and Hoc Mon district hospitals and health centres will be the first to
merge this year.
Dr Tieu Thi Thu Van, head of the city’s Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention, said
that interruption in anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for patients with
HIV/AIDS raised the risk of spreading the virus in the community.
This could lead to a failure to achieve the UN’s 90-90-90 goals by 2020. The goals
are to have at least 90 percent of all people with HIV know their status
and 90 percent receive sustained antiretroviral therapy (ART). The goals
call for 90 percent of all people receiving ARV therapy to be eventually
diagnosed with viral suppression.-VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
