Morung Express News
Kohima | September 26
He is 33 years old, married with two children. Wife sells alcohol to support their family. He is sick and in bed. His medical papers say that he is suffering from a disease called “immune compromised patient” and that his CD 4 count is 59 and PLC is 5500. He has TB – at least that was told to him and his wife. He coughs non-stop in bed. ‘There is water in his lungs’, she says. They live about 1 and half hour from Kohima. There are dispensaries and NGOs functioning in his home town. Nobody from HIV program has visited him. He has no idea what he is suffering from.
He has never seen or heard about People Living with HIV or have no idea what NGOs do except that drug addicts get new syringes from them. ‘I don’t use drugs anymore. Not once did I use after I got married, so I think I have nothing to do with NGOs’ he said. As a child, he was brought up in a broken home, completely unstable and insecure. Never manage to do proper school or skills training. As a youth got involved in drugs and alcohol and now as a young father, sick and in bed.
Will health services reach him? Or should he seek health services? Whose patient is he, anyway?
