Eric Malabanana, Jose NMC Sescon MD DPOGS, Nenita L. Ortega RMT MA, John Jardenil
Remedios AIDS Foundation Inc , Kaagapay Support Group, Manila,Philippines

TESTIMONIAL OF A CARE GIVER

PROBLEM:

There is a big gap between the North and the South, the rich and the poor in terms of access to every available services for People living with HIV and AIDS.

NARRATIVE:

In a developing country such as the Philippines, services for PLWHAs are very limited in the urban area and none in the rural area. Here, there are two prominent centers where people can go to avail of services related to AIDS. One is purely government where most of the poor go for their medical needs while the other one is semi government where the rich and the privileged avail of services. In terms of facilities, the latter is better compared to the former. The same is true with the doctor-patient relationship. NGO workers are around willing to volunteer their time in order to complement the lack in terms of human resources. The families are there as well. But the main big problem is availability of drugs and medicines required to treat opportunistic infections and medications that would alleviate other AIDS related conditions.

RECOMMENDATION:

There is a great need to strengthen capacity of the other partner agencies of the government like the NGOs and the local government units and the private sector in terms of service delivery to PLWHAs. They are the periphery are they complement the government's efforts.