While prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines is still low, it is important to set up the systems and structures for care and support services. Care and support services should be comprehensive and holistic and it must be addressed across the continuum. Meaning to say, there should be efficient flow of information, services and resources from the hospital, community, clinics and at home.
Remedios AIDS Foundation, Inc has started to build its initiatives through the publication of the manual, "ACT@com.base (AIDS Coordinating Team at Community Base) A Primer Care and Support Systems and Structures" funded by the Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC). This manual explicitly discusses how agencies/communities can start up with their own HIV/AIDS community base care and support team.
Then putting this manual into real action, RAF has started currently conducting capacity building initiatives of various key stakeholders on HIV/AIDS care and services. First it has started training health care providers from the local government units namely the doctors, nurses and medical technologist who are said believed to be front liners to clients recently diagnosed of having HIV/AIDS. Then this was followed by a two training workshops with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) conducted among social workers and its trainers as well as their community leaders and volunteers.
More capacity building initiatives are expected to unfold the following months as RAF molds what ACT@com.base is envisioned.
ACT@com.base hopes to complement the initiatives of the government among HIV/AIDS Core Team (HACT) members. The difference is that HACT core teams are hospital based while ACT@com.base is community based.
Eventually, integration of both initiatives will be undertaken to ensure that HIV/AIDS care and support services are delivered in an integrated fashion. Learning on challenges and issues faced by this mechanism will be documented for evaluation and for its improvement.
