HIV care and support is a complex process, which has to include the individual as well as the family. For one, even the diagnosis of HIV can be traumatic for a person. There are fears of discrimination in family and social ostracism, because HIV is still a stigmatized condition. People need to make life style changes, and adopt healthy habit in order to live with HIV. There are now drugs like Anti-Retrovirals Drugs, which make HIV a manageable condition, but these have many side effects, and therefore people need to be counseled in order continue taking the medicines. The family also has to cope with the illness of the family member, frequently a wage earning member. The family also has a major role to play in caring for the person, and they should be helped to understand this.
Medical, as well as psychosocial support services are therefore crucial for HIV care and support. These need to be given at different stages of the HIV infection, from testing and inditial diagnosis, through the different opportunistic infections, which may affect the person, to the initiation and continuation of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART), to finally end of life, death with dignity, and bereavement support for the families. Samraksha believes that it is the right of every person with HIV to be able to get all these services, within the government, private or social sector, and works to ensure this.
Samraksha's NamAraike is a continuum of HIV care and support services, for the individual and families affected by HIV, at different stages of the HIV infection. It also focuses on building capacities for care in the people and families. This includes training families on home based care, training on nutrition so that people can manage to make nutritious food with what is available and affordable to them, training on alternative therapies like yoga for stress management, and resilience training, to help them overcome adversity.
This continuum currently operates through a 15 bedded care centre in rural Kushtagi,(Koppal Dist) in North Karnataka, one of the areas badly affected by HIV, with very few services. This also offers weekly out patient services, which draws people from all over the district, and sometimes nearby districts also.
Similar services in Bangalore has now been phased out, after many care centres have emerged to provide sufficient services for the affected people in this area. Other out-patient clinics which were operated in association with the taluka hospitals in Raichur and Koppal are now being carried forward independently by the hospitals themselves.