Ignorant medical practitioners in the city are administering AIDS drugs to HIV positive patients. This is leading to serious repercussions
Sandhya Rajan, 26, could never have imagined that participation in a routine blood donation camp would change her life drastically. A test at the camp revealed that the she was HIV positive.
It took her about a week to come to terms with the “devastating news”. But the ordeal did not end there. She rushed to her physician, knowing little that his treatment would weaken her even before the virus did.
She was put on strong anti-retroviral drugs, which are meant for patients who have full-blown AIDS. And within three days of consuming the pills, Rajan, who was just HIV positive and not an AIDS patient, started having side-effects.
“I got rashes all over the body, had vomiting tendencies, and got an infection of the respiratory tract,” says Rajan. These symptoms gradually worsened with each subsequent dose of medicines. A second opinion at the government-run ART (anti-retroviral therapy) centre at JJ Hospital revealed she was just another victim of a general physician’s ignorance.
The four state-run ART centres are flooded with such cases of wrong treatment by general physicians. “At least 10 per cent of the 1,800 patients we are treating are suffering due to wrong and callous treatment meted out by general practioners,” says Dr AR Pazare, head of ART centre at the Parel’s KEM Hospital. The situation is particularly alarming, because random usage of wrong drugs can make the patients resistant to the first line of treatment. Moreover, the government has declared that it cannot afford the second line of treatment. “The second-line treatment for each patient may run into lakhs,” says Dr Alaka Deshpande, nodal officer, ART centre. There should be some legislation to prosecute doctors for prescribing wrong therapies, she points out.
Also, physicians do not inform their patients that HIV/AIDS drugs are available for free, say ART officials. Therefore, when people cannot afford expensive drugs, they stop buying them.
The Maharashtra Districts AIDS Control Society (MDACS) claims regular training sessions are held for general practioners. “They are trained on how to treat, and when to treat,” says Dr Nirupa Borges, project director, MDACS. “Why should patients shell out money on medicines which are actually free,” he asks.
