The Government of India has appointed Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (ILFS) to engage outreach workers across the country to convince all HIV Positive patients to get treatment in civil hospitals. Health Secretary Satish Chandra,who was in Zira to participate in the state-level International Youth Day programme,said this on Thursday. These outreach workers are HIV Positive patients appointed by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) who go in the field and convince other such patients to get treatment instead of hiding themselves and their disease. The project was started by NACO in December 2007 but the outreach workers were expelled from their jobs in December 2009 without being given any reason. They were being paid a monthly salary of Rs 2,500. Chandra said: Its a Government of India project and the decision to appoint outreach workers and expel them was taken by the Centre. But my office recently received a communication that says an agreement has been signed by Government of India with the ILFS to run this project. It will be now run in a bigger way and more workers are likely to be appointed. In civil hospitals,HIV patients are given free treatment under the national project. In Punjab,six outreach workers were appointed and they were working under the State AIDS Control Society. They have expressed willingness to provide their services. Satnam Singh Dhaliwal,president of the Universal Human Rights Commission,said: After the expulsion of outreach workers,the project has come to a standstill. Patients still consider this a taboo and dont come forward for treatment easily. The government must restart it at the earliest. According to Chandra,a total of 21,966 HIV cases have been registered in Punjab since 1999. Dhaliwal,however,said the number could be more as all patients do not come forward for treatment. The health secretary said the department had plans to recruit 250 more doctors and Rs 350 crore would be spent on the upgrade of facilities at medical colleges. Apart from this,a Rs 5.5-crore budget has been sanctioned for Makhu Civil Hospital in Zira constituency.
