Lending an ear to HIV patients

More than eight years after he was first diagnosed with HIV,the factory worker from Faridabad is an active volunteer for the Delhi Network of Positive people (DNP),attends English language classes with his wife,and has an “educated son”.

Every morning at 6.30 am,Prasad is up and about,helping his wife make breakfast. “Her CD4 count is lower than mine,so she is slightly unwell so it’s nice to help her out,” he says. CD-4 count is a standard test used by experts to determine when to start treatment for HIV positive patients.

After seeing the children off,Prasad and his wife are on their motorcycle and whizzing away to work,at the AIDS healthcare foundation near IGNOU. Every day she has to be dropped at 9.20 am,before he heads off to Safdarjung Hospital.

A volunteer at the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centre,Prasad gets lost in the crowd of patients within minutes of his arrival. “Queries about starting treatment,which drugs to take,what to say at work and home–there are endless lifestyle issues with HIV,” he explains.

With no desk to sit at,Prasad says he prefers walking into the crowd,and randomly approaching people to see if they need help. “There are so many confused,scared faces. After so many years,people know me,and I also understand who needs help,” he says.

Prasad got to know about his own HIV status in 2002,at the same hospital,months before his first wife succumbed to the disease. It took him two years and “bucket loads of courage”,to tell his brother–the only one in the family who still knows,about his HIV diagnosis in a handwritten letter he slipped into his pocket.

Take the history into consideration,and Prasad’s opening lines to every patient,suddenly make sense. A diminutive lady with a pallu covering her head walks up to him and whispers something. He takes her by the hand. “Remember,no one should suffer from HIV because of lack of treatment. Just take the drugs every 12 hours,” he says.

By 1 pm Prasad heads to his office at the Network of Positive Peoples’ office near the IGNOU campus. Prasad is ready to wear the administrative cap,after being recently elected board member of the body that was formed about ten years ago.

Prasad recalls how he met his present wife and her daughter at an HIV patients conclave in 2008. “She was from Bhagalpur and had also lost her first husband to HIV. The villagers did not even let the family cremate the body because they feared the virus would spread by the fumes of the burning ashes. Her in-laws believed her to be responsible for his death,and though she was also diagnosed with HIV and was on treatment,they took her medicines away and threw her out,” he says. After nearly a year of knowing each other,the two decided to get married and bring their children under one roof. “Our children our studying and thankfully both are negative for HIV,” says Prasad.

Later in the day,Prasad is called at another leading hospital in the city where a lab assistant allegedly refused to draw an HIV positive patient’s blood. A drive of about half-an-hour,and Prasad takes the patient back inside the hospital with a written complaint to the hospital head. The response is immediate. Within hours,the blood is drawn,though action against the assistant is still awaited.