Africa-Press – Uganda. Health officials at Cilio Health Centre III in Aii-Vu Sub-county, Terego District, have raised the red flag over dilapidated buildings and lack of privacy for HIV/Aids patients at the facility.
HIV/Aids patients complain of stigmatisation since they are mixed up with other patients at the facility.
The facility has one fully-fledged functional building where all hospital work is carried out, a maternity ward and the main ward that serve as a store and Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) clinic respectively.
Many HIV/Aids patients are shunning treatment at the facility since there is lack of confidentiality in the small space shared by all the patients.
Ms Beatrice Ondiru, the HIV/Aids coordinator, also the acting officer-in-charge of the facility, said they have 200 patients enrolled in ART, with 115 active on treatment, 113 of whom are on first line only and two on second line.
“We don’t have a procedure room, in fact the laboratory is supposed to be a separate unit of its own, we don’t have enough structures,” she said.
Ms Ondiru said adolescents shun treatment since their privacy and confidentiality is not considered due to a lack of a secluded structure for them.
“We need an adolescents’ corner where you can interact with the youth further. There is a small room which we had improvised but it is not effective,” she said.
Ms Ondiru said the hospital has dilapidated structures with few beds, which are in an open room coupled with a problem of stigma in the community in regards to the HIV and reproductive health services.
“With the heavy winds and rain, we are in fear that the ceiling, which is filled with cracks, may collapse on our staff and patients,” she said.
The district HIV coordinator, Mr Yovan Aluma, said they have carried out sensitisation programmes in the community, encouraging people to go for treatment.
“There has been a lot of community engagement with different partners attached to the facility on different programmes where we have discussed the need to improve health services access to young people,” he said.
Mr Aluma said there is a general problem of lack of well-established adolescent services at all a health facilities across the district.
“Young people are special so they need special attention. If there was a space or shelter where young people could meet, they wouldn’t feel stigmatised and disappear, they would rather get integrated with their peers who are waiting for other services. We have trained some staff on how to handle adolescents but there are still some issues that we need to sort out,” he said.
Mr Augustine Vuni, the officer-in-charge of social services at Terego District Local Council, said as a local government, they are constrained since most health centres in the area don’t have the required structures.
“Cilio is a very old health centre whose main structure is already dilapidated. We have identified these areas, have plans but they can’t be implemented due to lack of resources,” he said.
However Mr Vuni said government is constructing a health centre III at Wati between Cilio and Kubala that will decongest Cilio Health Centre III and hopefully create space for the much-needed adolescent rooms.
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