Jhpiego to use Pfizer Foundation funding to reduce HIV/AIDS stigma and train health care professionals in Jamaica
13 April 2004
Baltimore, Md. – Stigma about HIV/AIDS, even among
healthcare providers, prevents many people who might be helped by prevention and treatment
measures from getting tested for the disease and seeking care in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean.
Pfizer Foundation has awarded Jhpiego a $125,000 grant to partner with the Jamaica
Ministry of Health (MOH) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to develop tools targeted at
frontline healthcare workers to reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with
HIV/AIDS. The award will also be used to train nurses and other healthcare workers in the
prevention and treatment of opportunistic infections.
Jhpiego, an international health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, Md., trains and supports healthcare providers including doctors, nurses,
midwives, health educators, and community health workers, working in limited resource settings
throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe. Jhpiego
is focused on improving the health of women and children.
The Caribbean has the second highest prevalence of HIV in the world after
Sub-Saharan Africa and Jamaica is particularly hard hit. An estimated 18,000 Jamaicans of
reproductive age (90 percent of total HIV cases) are infected with HIV/AIDS according to a
2001 UNAIDS report. According to Jamaica’s National KABP Survey in 2000, more than a third
of men and women surveyed knew a person with AIDS (living or dead), and for 10% of those
surveyed, the person with AIDS was a close relative or friend. Jhpiego has been working with
the MOH since 2001 to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica by developing a national
network of providers trained in HIV testing and counseling.
Under the Pfizer award, Jhpiego will add to its scope of services in the country
in partnership with the MOH by enhancing efforts to improve the quality of services by nurses
and other providers working directly with HIV/AIDS patients. In order to achieve this goal,
Jhpiego will conduct:
- Opportunistic infection and infection prevention training, into
which Jhpiego plans to integrate stigma and discrimination role plays, case studies, and
messages to the healthcare providers being trained;
- Feedback sessions on data collected from client satisfaction surveys
and health provider surveys on stigma and discrimination and quality of care; and
- Suggest a process for decreasing stigma and
discrimination by health care providers in Jamaica. Further, trained observers will assess
services at one public hospital, and Jhpiego will work with NGOs to document the quality of
current services and any decrease in stigma and discrimination by providers attending the
training. The intervention process will also provide NGOs with data documenting the way
stigma and discrimination are manifested in Jamaica for advocacy regarding stigma and
discrimination.
About the Pfizer Foundation
Working with governments, businesses and nonprofit organizations, Pfizer is building
partnerships for a healthier world. These partnerships foster the development of new
comprehensive approaches to issues such as the HIV/AIDS crisis around the world and
access to quality health care in the U.S. The goal of the Pfizer Foundation's
International HIV/AIDS Grants program is to bolster HIV training and
capacity-building efforts to improve the ability of health care providers and community
leaders to provide high standards of care for HIV/AIDS patients.
About Jhpiego
For nearly 40 years, Jhpiego, (pronounced "ja-pie-go"), has empowered front-line health
workers by designing and implementing simple, low-cost, hands-on solutions that
strengthen the delivery of health care services, following the
household-to-hospital continuum of care. We partner with community- to
national-level organizations to build sustainable, local capacity through
advocacy, policy and guidelines development, and quality and performance
improvement approaches.
|
