MoH to seek alternative ARV dispensation
Gothataone Moeng | Tuesday June 3, 2014 15:57
Accounting before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday, Malefho conceded that the current means of dispensing the drugs is a violation of patients’ privacy and promotes stigma.
Currently, most government facilities have Infectious Disease Control Centres (IDCC), where patients on ARV treatment get their drugs separate from the pharmacy where other patients get prescriptions. Yesterday, PAC member and Member of Parliament (MP) for Kanye North Kentse Rammidi argued that this isolation of patients violates their right to privacy and exposes them to stigma and ridicule.
“People start to talk about other people and say ‘we know so-and-so is on ARV’. When we you ask them how they know, they say ‘because we have seen him going where people get ARVs,” he said.
He argued that the people most at risk of this violation are poor and working class people, who have to use government facilities, as they do not all have access to medical aid.
“I think the time has come to re-look at the way we dispense ARVs,” Malefho told the committee yesterday. He said that at the advent of government’s rollout of the treatment programme, there was a need for additional facilities as the numbers of patients were overwhelming. “It was a good initiative then. It was necessary to have additional facilities. Also, at the time a lot of people did not know how to manage their illness, so we had to train ARV nurses and place them within the IDCCs,” he said.
Malefho also said that some facilities do not have IDCCs and just have specific days where people on ARV treatment can get drugs. However, he said there is no need to have these as people can get the drugs on the same days as patients on treatment for illnesses such as sugar diabetes. PAC members commended the PS for his ministry’s successful efforts in rolling out the distribution of ARVs to all districts, particularly to rural areas to improve accessibility of drugs to all who need them.
Meanwhile, Malefho said while the rate of new HIV infections have dropped, the ministry still has to deal with specific groups such as sex workers, among whom infection rates stand at 65 percent.
“On average, one sex worker will deal with 16 customers in one night. So there is a possibility of infecting those customers and then those customers infecting other people. These are the groups we have to deal with if we are to control the disease,” he said.