Executive Director of the Barbados Family Planning Association (BFPA), George Griffith, strongly believes that the BFPA is well-positioned to encourage even more Barbadians to know their HIV status.
Speaking to the Barbados Advocate yesterday morning, Griffith said that the BFPA is eager and able to assist the Ministry of Health move its HIV rapid results screening programme beyond its pilot phase. Griffith said that his staff is properly equipped to handle the hard-to-reach sectors of the population, who the authorities, in their efforts to reduce the spread of the virus, may still be finding it difficult to connect with.
“Our personnel have been trained and we as partners of the Ministry of Health are ready and willing to go forward. This pilot is taking some time and we really thought that by now it would have been completed and we would be given the all clear, so that we could offer the rapid result testing right here at the BFPA as is the case with other Caribbean countries,” he explained.
He continued, “The IPPF [International Planned Parenthood Federation) is ready to give us full support and we are willing to have other NGOs be exposed to some kind of attachment with us, so that they too would be able to offer the testing. We do not want to be critical of the Government, but we think that the pilot has been going for some time, and we have all of the facilities and really want to be given the all clear so that we can proceed.”
Griffith is suggesting that until this rapid result testing programme is introduced on a wider scale, the message of how important it is to know one’s status will not fully reach the desired cross-section of Barbadians.
“The presumption is that people are aware of how one can contract the virus, but we have to think in terms of those people who are not coming forward because they are generally marginalised in the population, they are even stigmatised and sometimes they feel that they are not good enough to go to the polyclinics, because the attitude there may not make them comfortable. But we see ourselves as being very people friendly and there is a high level of commitment to the whole question of confidentiality and the whole principle of acceptance and so on, so anyone can come to us,” he said.
The executive director noted that while recent figures indicate that there is a reduction in the incidence of new infections of HIV as well as the mortality rate of those who develop AIDS, the BFPA is of the firm belief that no effort should be spared in trying to encourage Barbadians to get tested. Moreover, he said that the rapid results test should be encouraged, as it reduces the arduous waiting times that persons now have to endure to get their status results back.
(Source http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=local&NewsID=23172)
