New discrete medication distribution system for HIV patients

Dec 21, 2020 News

Kaieteur News – A discrete system for receipt of medicine has been implemented by the National Care and Treatment Centre (NCTC) for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) patients. This was stated by the NCTC’s Director Dr. Abiola Jacobs who said that the system was created to ensure patients with HIV receive sufficient treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic but confidentially if they wish.
The NCTC is one of the largest treatment facilities for Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the condition caused by HIV, in Guyana. It provides diagnosis and management of STIs and HIV/AIDS, voluntary counselling and testing and management of some chronic diseases. The NCTC is mandated to decrease the spread of STIs and HIV in Guyana through accurate diagnosis.
It was said that the centre saw a decline in patient attendance in light of the pandemic resulting in them having to find alternatives to adequately meet the patients’ needs. This included the roll-out of HIV medicine, according to Jacobs.
Jacobs told the DPI last week that the centre had to change the way clients were managed. With that change, came the home delivery of medicines, visits to the patient’s workplace once permission was given and patients could have also picked up their medication at the NCTC without the face to face interaction that was practiced before the pandemic.
“We had to change the way we managed clients, we had to really set up differently, so, what we try to do was home delivery, but if clients were uncomfortable and they didn’t really want us to visit, we had arranged somewhere on a corner, a system that might be discrete,” Jacobs shared.
Further, she disclosed that some clients who did not want to have their medication delivered at home would go to the NCTC to pick up, but deciding the order for treatment when those persons showed up took some time. As a result of this, visits had to be cut out unless the patient had a particular concern or required physical examination.
It was also stated that the more long-term clients who have been receiving treatment at the facility received increased dosages to last a long time. This was done to ease persons needing to go out or have medications dropped off, which promoted more social distancing.
It was also made important to note, that HIV is one of the comorbidities listed for COVID-19 and persons carrying the virus are more vulnerable to the severe effects of COVID-19.
Special provisions were also created for persons infected with HIV/AIDS who contracted COVID-19 and it was said that in the last few months all of the NCTC’s measures were done in compliance with the COVID-19 guidelines.

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