MOH “Treat All” policy gets boost with new Physicians’s programme

MOH “Treat All” policy gets boost with new Physicians’s programme
A Know Your Status campaign flier in The Bahamas.

Persons ailed with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in The Bahamas can now have access to a much better quality of healthcare thanks to the recent launch of “HIV Continued Medical Education for Physicians” by the Ministry of Health.

The programme is the first of 12 training modules with a mandate to ensure the highest quality of services for health promotion, protection and accessibility.

This initiative has been set in place to help doctors better care for patients living with this disease. The number one goal the government hopes to achieve is to end the social stigma that comes along with this sickness and to reinforce the “Treat All” policy in community clinics providing discreet and private consultations.

National HIV/AIDS Programme Director, Dr. Nikkiah Forbes, hopes for this approach to empower persons to seek proper care and the needed medication to help them live a normal life.

Along with educating physicians, this initiative extends on covering the full range of HIV health care with including regular viral load testing, counselling, initiation, and monitoring of anti-retroviral therapy, in both the public and private health sectors.

With the Ministry of Health Surveillance revealing that there are some 8,667 persons infected, the most important goal of this initiative is to target, prevent and reduce mother-to-child transmission of this illness.