Suburbs get 3 ART centres for HIV patients

Starting this November,city suburbs will be better equipped to handle HIV cases as three new Anti-Retroviral Therapy centres will be open to the public.

Starting this November,city suburbs will be better equipped to handle HIV cases as three new Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres will be open to the public. The ART centres will be located at Siddhartha Hospital (Goregaon),Shatabdi Hospital (Chembur) and MT Agarwal Hospital (Mulund). The plan to set up the ART centres was chalked out last year in order to relieve the overburdened centres of the south Mumbai hospitals.

Many of the HIV patients who come to the existing ART centres for treatment are from the suburbs. The three new centres have been located in such a way that patients dont have to travel all the way to south Mumbai for treatment, said Harish Pathak,additional project manager of Maharashtra District AIDS Control Society (MDACS). The waiting period for patients will be reduced and it will also be possible to provide treatment more systematically. Both registered as well as fresh patients will now be shifted to the ART centre close to their residence, he added.

Currently,there are seven ART centres in the city,located at KEM Hospital (Parel),JJ Hospital (Byculla ),Sion Hospital,Nair Hospital (Mumbai Central),Godrej Memorial Hospital (Vikhroli) and Wadia Hospital (Parel). Sion Hospital also has a specialised paediatric ART centre.

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As per the rules laid down by National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO),2,500 patients per ART centre is the threshold limit. However,JJ Hospital has around 7,000 registered patients and KEM has more than 5,000 patients. If the three new ART centres prove to be a success,we will definitely plan more centres in coming years, said Pathak.

Dr S S Kudalkar,project director of MDACS,has already spoken to medical superintendents of the hospitals to discuss the logistics.

The centre has already been set up and trained staff with expertise have been recruited specifically to handle the ART centre, said Dr S Poikar,medical superintendent of Siddhartha Hospital in Goregaon.

According to MDACS,there are currently 17,700 adults and 1,119 children living on ART care in the city.

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