Cameroon : Confidentiality important in Aids campaign
Posted by africanpress on August 22, 2008
Yaounde (Cameroon) – Confidentiality management is an important aspect in mutual health organisations. Many AIDS patients shy away from treatment centres because they fear that after screening their health condition will not be kept secret.
Gael E. who was diagnosed HIV/AIDS positive last year has constantly refused going to the hospital for treatment. She rather prefers to keep the disease to her self than to go for treatment or counselling.
Thousands of patients in Cameroon die due to the fact that they fear that they will be exposed. AIDS is disease that needs a lot of care as far as secrecy is concerned. It is for this reason that a two-day workshop on management of confidentiality and counselling in mutual health organisations opened in Yaounde last Monday.
Organised by the German Cameroon Health and AIDS Programme with the support of the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) in its component on Micro Insurance and Mutual Health Organisation, the workshop brought together participants some 40 participants drawn from mutual health organisations from four provinces notably the West, South, North West and Centre Provinces.
For three days participants received lectures on topics such as introduction of counselling, introduction of confidentiality, among others. At the end of the workshop, it is expected that the participants who are also members of the micro insurance health programme will be used for better management of confidentiality as far as the status of people living with HIV/AIDS in concerned.
The technical advisor for the promotion of mutual heath organisations in the South Province, Dr Molioum T. told Cameroon Tribune that he will pass on the knowledge he has acquired in the training workshop to the mutual health organisations he is promoting and even support other promoters in the province.
The Mutual Health Organisation is a health insurance scheme that works with all categories of persons including people living with HIV/AIDS. One of the principal missions of the Mutual Health Organisation is to bring health care closer to the population.
—————
API/Source.Cameroon Tribune (Cameroon), by Elizabeth Mosima
