The Hope Center Clinic
Board member Sophie Sprecht-Walsh plays construction manager on her recent trip to Bamako.
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As of March, 2008 GAIA has completed the construction of the Hope Center Clinic in Sikoro, a peri-urban impovershed neighborhood of Bamako, Mali. The completion of this construction will allow GAIA VF to continue our effort to become the first “CSCOM” (Community-based clinic or infirmary) in Mali to offer HIV care to villagers. No CSCOM-based HIV care is currently provided in Mali.
The Hope Center Clinic is a 2-floor addition to the existing Regional Health Department clinic of Sikoro. It will be fully equipped with a large infirmary, a pharmacy, a laboratory, exam rooms, and offices. The building also has a meeting room for peer education and a cooking area for the preparation of the GAIA supported weekly meal program. The clinic will have wireless internet, multiple sinks and toilets.
This plan has the support of the local authorities (the CSLS and the Regional department of Health). Should the Hope Center Clinic establish itself as a center for HIV care in this most rudimentary of settings – the village infirmary – it will set an example that the other 785 CSCOMS in Mali will be able to follow, increasing access to government-supported free HIV medication and HIV tests for hundreds of thousands of individuals who currently have no access to care. Thus, the Hope Center Clinic will establish a village-based HIV care model, “setting the standard” in Mali, thereby dramatically improving access to HIV prevention, education and care for all of Western Africa.
The clinic already provides HIV care to more than 65 patients. We anticipate, given the current rate of enrollment of five patients per week, that we will be serving an additional 100 patients by June of this year. We estimate that at least 800 individuals living with HIV are situated in the village of Sikoro. It is our goal to reach out to all of these individuals by the end of 2008. Our CSCOM-based HIV care model will become the ‘standard of care’, increasing access to HIV medications for the estimated 800,000 persons living with HIV in Mali.
While that is 65 patients is a small fraction of the estimated 800 infected children and their parents who are in need of care in this area, we have surmounted a significant amount of stigma and despair to establish that number of patients. Patients are currently arriving for care at the clinic at the rate of five per week: our current goal is to have 100 patients under our care by June 2008. HIV medication is provided at no cost; additional medications are obtained by GAIA VF at no-cost or at reduced cost, using GAIA VF funds to leverage access to life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs) from the government and treatment for AIDS-related opportunistic infections from pharmaceutical company donation programs.
Why develop an HIV care center in a “CSCOM”?
Malians have limited access to these life-saving drugs due to restricted access to HIV testing and the lack of clinics that provide HIV care. The CSCOM is the health care delivery system at the base of the health care pyramid in Mali –the most important means of reaching the average Malian, whether he/she lives in an urban slum or in the most rural area of the country. GAIA VF is motivated to establish this clinic as a model for “communal self-care” that may be replicated in other neighborhoods in Bamako, and the rest of Mali, should this clinic be successful. Thus, future beneficiaries will also include all HIV-infected children and their parents in Mali, West Africa.
GAIA VF’s commitment to stop AIDS through the Hope Center Clinic, our “Prevention Now!” projects, and our on-the groundwork to develop a global vaccine for distribution on a not-for-profit basis remains unflagging.