While Anti Retroviral drugs are available and accessible in almost all parts of Kenya today, more concerted education on how to use the drugs has remained a major concern especially in the rural areas. Many people still have the notion that these drugs trigger early death due to serious side effects; make users age faster and call for expensive nutrition.
Peer educators in the Eastern region of Kenya have expressed concern at the rate at which HIV/Aids patients turn full blown only a month or two after testing. Ben Mutiso, a peer educator in Kangundo district in Eastern Province noted that many people are tested but are not well prepared to get into the different life-style where they must be on the drugs for the rest of their life’s. “ Once they are put on the drugs, they automatically, get suspicious!” he said in a recent interview.
The Kangundo District Aids & STI Coordinator asserts that hospitals have been very keen to educate ARV users on their impact adding that it is not easy to sign a lifetime contract with drugs.Hospitals all over Kenya however do not give Antiretroviral treatment to patients whose background is not clear.
The patient therefore has to sign a contract and produce a guarantor who will be monitoring how the patients take the drugs. Some hospitals go a mile further and take the patient’s physical address and follow up the patient to their houses in case of default! Different hospitals,however, have different ways of “punishing “people who default and do not go to the clinic to refill their drug cans as advised.
Coptic Hospital within Nairobi makes the patient buy drugs for one month if they default by a week. Kangundo general hospital orders the patient to go to their ever congested Out Patient Department where the patient queues the whole day while Chogoria mission hospital denies the client ARVS and puts them on Septrin until they are sure the patient can adhere to the drugs.
The patient therefore has to sign a contract and produce a guarantor who will be monitoring how the patients take the drugs. Some hospitals go a mile further and take the patient’s physical address and follow up the patient to their houses in case of default! Different hospitals,however, have different ways of “punishing “people who default and do not go to the clinic to refill their drug cans as advised.
Coptic Hospital within Nairobi makes the patient buy drugs for one month if they default by a week. Kangundo general hospital orders the patient to go to their ever congested Out Patient Department where the patient queues the whole day while Chogoria mission hospital denies the client ARVS and puts them on Septrin until they are sure the patient can adhere to the drugs.
The treatment seminar offered to the patients before they are started on drugs has different implications to different people. While many people find the seminar educative, to others it is a platform to decline starting medication. In the seminar, the patients are advised on what to do and what not to do while on the drugs. To some clients, the dos and don’ts prove to be too demanding or even frightening. There are patients who think that the nutrition is too expensive for a person on ARVS and opt to do away with them. Another common notion is that the side effects may be so severe that they may lead to premature death.
Mueni* fell prey to such insinuations and categorically declined the Ant-iretroviral treatment even after doctors and her colleagues pleaded with her. She argued that the dos stopped her from drinking beer while she had been drinking since her University days. She said that she could not afford protected sex because her husband was equally infected. Because she was working in one of Kenya’s leading HIV/Aids networks, she was invited to various workshops where ARVS was paramount in a persuasion bid. She still hardened her heart until when she completely fell ill. By the time she accepted drugs it was too late, she died a week after of kidney failure.
Mueni’s story is not isolated in Kenya. Many people have died for lack of adequate information on what the Anti retroviral therapy entails. However people who are already using the drugs have formed groups in the rural and have launched campaigns to educate people on the advantages of the Anti retroviral therapy. A group called Kangundo Hope support group recently pointed out that the government should not only embark on testing people but should also prepare them for a life where ARVS are permanently included in their daily diet.
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