HARARE - Some doctors have refused to take part in a government-led initiative to provide HIV/AIDS counseling and testing to all patients they see, saying the exercise would cost them too much in potential earnings for the time taken providing free counseling.
Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA) chairman Paul Chimedza told a workshop last week that doctors were reluctant to participate in the Provider Initiated Counselling and Testing (PICT) programme. Chimedza made the disclosure during a workshop for journalists hosted in Harare last week by the Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAFAIDS). A brief counseling HIV/AIDS counselling session with one patient would last no less than 30 minutes, which according to Chimedza, some doctors found too much time to donate for free to each and every patients they see.
Meanwhile the ZIMA head said PITC should be made part of standard care to allow doctors to order an HIV/AIDS test for patients the same way they advised patients to take routine tests for other ailments, such as diabetes or high blood pressure. One of the biggest problems fuelling HIV/AIDS is the way we treat it separately from other diseases. For example with diabetes, you just tell the patient youre going to test them, he said. Chimedza said the same could be done with HIV/AIDS, with patients simply being told to go and get a full blood count to determine whether or not they had the virus. He said what was important was to preserve the centrality of confidentiality.
However, he admitted that the introduction of PICT had alarmed some people who feared that it could be a move towards imposed testing. Some patients become apprehensive. They say, Why have you picked on me. Is there something about me that suggests I might have AIDS? Chimedza said, adding that it was necessary to reassure patients that declining an HIV test would not deprive them of treatment. He added that PICT had identified more people with HIV/AIDS than the voluntary testing and counselling (VCT) programme. With VCT, most of the people who presented themselves tested negative.
Post published in: Analysis