IN TODAY’S WORLD AIDS NO MORE A STIGMA

When Sanjeev Kekature and Sushila Dhawale decided to get married, both of them were excited and happy. Sanjeev had finally found a partner
at the age of 35 and Sushila got a chance to start life afresh after she had lost her first husband a few months back.
After just 2-3 months of their marriage, they came to know that Sushila was HIV positive. As an initial reaction, Sanjeev felt cheated and shattered. But fortunately he could come to terms with life within a month and decided to take his wife to the anti-retroviral therapy (ART) centre at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) for treatment.
"When I first met the couple I did not know it was Sushila's second marriage and she could have got the infection from her first husband. But when the couple told the entire history without hesitation, I was impressed. Both of them belonged to poor socio-economic background and knew very little about the disease except that the syndrome could kill the infected person. Yet, they began following instructions in the first visit to the centre and now continue to take regular treatment. This has helped them live a quality life which is what the ART centres are expected to do," said chief medical officer Dr Sudhir Mamidwar.
In a contrasting story, a woman from an educated family was thrown out of her house by in-laws after her son died of AIDS. "Although my in-laws knew that I had got the infection from my husband, they were not ready to keep me or my children. I am still fighting a court case for some share in my husband's property," Geeta told TOI not willing to name her husband's family despite the ill-treatment meted out to her.
"If we look back, cases like Geeta's were more common. Now more and more people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs) come to ART centres on their own. Private practitioners too have begun sending cases where the affected persons cannot afford the high cost of treatment. At GMCH, it is available at free of cost. A large number of patients comes from rural hospitals," said Dr Y V Bansod, professor and head, medicine, GMCH. "The government spends about Rs 1,200 per patient per month, receiving ART. These include children as well as some gays. We have specially trained counselors and this has helped deal with all kinds of patients," he added.
As much as 6,000 individuals have taken treatment at GMCH centre after the ART centre came here. However, of these, roughly half the patients are still coming to the centre. Some of the rest have died, some stopped the treatment after some reactions to the medicines. Some have shifted to new centres which have come up recently at Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and at rural hospitals in places like Bhandara, Akola, Yavatmal and Gondia. Two more centres are coming up in Amravati and Washim.
But there is still a dark side to the story. Some of the patients told TOI that doctors in both the private sector as well as the government set-up still refuse to handle PLHAs with some complications. "I was refused surgery by a doctor in a private hospital for a small tumour-like thing on my hand. I went to a government hospital in my district but the doctors refused to tocuh me. Now, I am here at GMCH hoping that they will not send me back," said 25-year-old Kavita.