Day by day, my NGO is getting more and more PLWHA clients under our care, mostly referred to us by the HIV clinic at Ipoh GH. Although different buddies are assigned different PLWHAs, we (the volunteers) do have meetings to discuss the problems faced by our clients. However, we can’t afford to discuss the problems of all the PLWHAs in one meeting as we have over 100 of them.
As such we divide ourselves into a few care-groups, and each group will meet separately to discuss the problems of the PLWHAs who are under the care of the respective group members.
My group had our meeting last night. I noticed certain similarities between some of my own clients and those of my fellow volunteers.
Typical scenario 1…
Husband an injecting drug user… shared needles…
Then husband starts getting various kinds of diseases… goes for check-up… finds out he has AIDS. Innocent wife asked to go for blood test as well… and finds out that she too has been infected with HIV.
By the time they find out, husband’s CD4 is already very low… already infected with opportunistic diseases… TB, hepatitis…
Husband now already very weak… too weak to work… wife becomes family’s sole breadwinner… working very hard to make ends meet… but they still don’t get enough to cover monthly household expenses. If renting, then land-lord already on the verge of chasing them out of the house… children’s school fees not paid… the ones in secondary school always get scolding from their teachers resulting in the children not wanting to go school unless and until their fees can be paid (I don’t know why but somehow the ones in primary school aren’t that badly affected when they don’t pay their fees).
Typical scenario 2…
Same as scenario 1 but husband has passed away.
Typical scenario 3…
First line same as scenario 1, and then the couple gets divorced without even knowing the husband has HIV.
Both remarry without knowing they have been infected, and the wife only finds out when she gets pregnant through her second marriage. Tries to tell ex-husband so that he can avoid passing the virus to his new wife and possible future children but that good-for-nothing guy denies it came from him and refuses to go for blood test.
And so the virus gets passed on and on and on…
As such we divide ourselves into a few care-groups, and each group will meet separately to discuss the problems of the PLWHAs who are under the care of the respective group members.
My group had our meeting last night. I noticed certain similarities between some of my own clients and those of my fellow volunteers.
Typical scenario 1…
Husband an injecting drug user… shared needles…
Then husband starts getting various kinds of diseases… goes for check-up… finds out he has AIDS. Innocent wife asked to go for blood test as well… and finds out that she too has been infected with HIV.
By the time they find out, husband’s CD4 is already very low… already infected with opportunistic diseases… TB, hepatitis…
Husband now already very weak… too weak to work… wife becomes family’s sole breadwinner… working very hard to make ends meet… but they still don’t get enough to cover monthly household expenses. If renting, then land-lord already on the verge of chasing them out of the house… children’s school fees not paid… the ones in secondary school always get scolding from their teachers resulting in the children not wanting to go school unless and until their fees can be paid (I don’t know why but somehow the ones in primary school aren’t that badly affected when they don’t pay their fees).
Typical scenario 2…
Same as scenario 1 but husband has passed away.
Typical scenario 3…
First line same as scenario 1, and then the couple gets divorced without even knowing the husband has HIV.
Both remarry without knowing they have been infected, and the wife only finds out when she gets pregnant through her second marriage. Tries to tell ex-husband so that he can avoid passing the virus to his new wife and possible future children but that good-for-nothing guy denies it came from him and refuses to go for blood test.
And so the virus gets passed on and on and on…
