Health professionals are not doing their jobs adequately if they are not providing the full package of services associated with HIV testing. What is wrong with professionals that they need someone in the community to point this out to them? Is this how WHO-recommended 'provider-initiated testing and counselling' is practiced in Burma?
If the [him] moderator can obtain digital copies of 'How to Tell My Daughter’ and ‘Confronted with HIV’ he can post them to be downloaded from the website.
[him] moderator
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Counselling needed with HIV checks
By Than Htike Oo
January 3 - 9, 2011
PEOPLE who fear they may have contracted HIV/AIDS are being advised to receive counselling before they have a blood test.
While voluntary counselling and confidential testing (VCCT) is offered at government hospitals and specialist HIV clinics, many people prefer to be tested at smaller clinics and laboratories because they offer more privacy.
However, these clinics do not usually provide counselling to customers and U Tin Hlaing, a HIV-positive author, told The Myanmar Times this leaves sufferers ill-prepared to cope with the devastating news they are HIV-positive.
He said VCCT should be mandatory at all places that test for HIV.
“Clinics and laboratories should be banned from testing for the virus unless they offer VCCT,” said U Tin Hlaing, who is the author of ‘How to Tell My Daughter’ and ‘Confronted with HIV’, a collection of 44 of his articles written about HIV/AIDS for local journals and magazines since 2008. “Those places should take responsibility for their actions, not just accept money from customers.”
He said medical professionals also need to understand the impact a positive test can have on suffers and show more empathy towards patients.
“Doctors don’t know how it feels to be told you’ve got HIV. They should be trained about the virus and the disease; if they were, they wouldn’t recommend people get themselves checked at clinics and laboratories that do not provide VCCT,” he said.
U Tin Hlaing said he discovered he was HIV-positive after undergoing a blood test at a clinic that did not offer counselling on the recommendation of a doctor.
“The doctor suggested I get checked for HIV as I had tuberculosis. He didn’t suggest VCCT, and I didn’t know much about it,” he said.
“The impact of hearing the news was so severe I wanted to kill myself. What I did know about HIV is that there is no cure, and people discriminate [against those with HIV],” he said. “Prior counselling could have spared me some of the anguish.”
U Myint Swe, president of Rattana Metta, a local non-governmental organisation that provides support to people living with HIV/AIDS, agreed HIV testing should not be conducted without VCCT.
“In extreme cases, people may end up committing suicide if they are not given proper counselling before testing for the virus,” he said. “Nobody should be forced to take a test for HIV. But if they do undergo a test, they should be given proper counselling beforehand.”
http://www.mmtimes.com/2010/news/556/news55604.html
