About Us - Our Works
Our work can be mainly divided into 2 categories. Core actions or activities and supporting actions or activities. Under the core actions we provide treatment, care and support related services aimed at improving the overall health and wellbeing of a person living with HIV/AIDS. These sets of activities include residential transit care homes where PLHAs receive free medical and nutritional support, community and home based care services, diagnostic and clinical support in hospitals, referral, OI and side effect management and treatment, antiretroviral therapy (ARV) and anti-tuberculosis treatment (ATT) services. The supporting actions or activities are aimed at supporting our core actions. These include treatment literacy to educate PLHAs about treatment adherence and side effect management, advocacy aimed at scaling up services for PLHAs and monitoring their quality. Skill development and capacity building to to provide livelihood opportunities after successful treatment initiation. Harm reduction to help drug users to access HIV treatment and care services.
Treatment, Care & Support
To provide state of the art treatment and care services free of cost to PLHAs is our core objective. NKP has 3 block structure to facilitate greater access to treatment and care services for PLHAs in Nepal.
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Block 1: Information, Counseling and Referral Centers (ICARC) are small centers with 3-5 staff located in remote and high burden districts of the country. Outreach workers who are employed here are mostly local PLHAs and are familiar with the geography, language and culture. This allows them to go deep into the districts to spread awareness on access to AIDS treatment and care. They are also trained on community and home based care thus are able to provide counseling and basic medical advice to those who need help. Currently there are 24 such centers in 20 districts. These centers also facilitates networking among local PLHAs and the outreach workers sometimes help patients by supplying medicine to their homes when they are very sick. [TOP]
Block 2: Transit Care Home (TCH) are care centers that provide short term medical and psychosocial care to PLHAs who are in need. An average center has 25 bed capacity and has up-to 10 staff and volunteers. Most of the clients staying in these centers are here for a maximum of 2 months at a time. Mostly PLHAs who are starting TB or HIV treatment also stay here until they fully adapt to their new regimen. Currently we have 12 such centers spread across the country. [TOP]
Block 3: Super Specialty Center for AIDS care (SSCAC) is located in the capital city of Kathmandu. This 50 bedded center provides state of the art treatment and care services to those with advanced AIDS related illnesses. This newly established center was opened in March 2008 and is probably the first of its kind across Asia. This center also hosts the administrative headquarters of NKP. A new building is currently under construction and is expected to complete by the end of 2008. After the completion of this building the capacity of this center will be increased to 100 beds. Generally after treatment PLHAs are able to lead a normal lifestyle however they need different forms of support. We provide individual, family, bereavement and adherence counseling. Our outreach workers provide counseling and referral support at homes and communities and are also available for case management. We organize skill development and capacity building trainings on a regular basis. PLHAs also get an opportunity to better understand their treatment options and their side effects on treatment education. We provide small loans to those who perform well in the skill development trainings and are in dire need. [TOP]
Advocacy has been one of NKP’s supporting actions. Since 2003 we have been publishing The HIV Post a newsletter dedicated to HIV/AIDS issues and an advocacy platform. We organize press meetings, issue position papers and lobby with the government and donors in a regular basis. Our direct action has made a significant impact on several policy issues that directly affects PLHAs in Nepal. Treatment advocacy is one such example. We have been continuously training PLHAs on treatment issues and mobilize them as per the need. We also work closely with National and International organization on key advocacy issues. NKP also runs Positive Speaker Session to educate and mobilize young people. HIV Positive speakers go to schools and other institutions to share their experiences of living with AIDS. This program is unique compared to the conventional classroom style lectures on AIDS. [TOP]