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Home Care - 1.2.4 The Cambodia situation
1.2.4 The Cambodia situation
This approach of comprehensive care across the continuum has provided a successful framework for both policy and implementation of AIDS-related programmes in SE Asia, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. The approach is particularly suited to Cambodia (9) , which is characterised by:
Cambodia has a rapidly increasing number of PLHA presenting with a range of common symptoms including headaches, fever, diarrhoea, skin and oral infections and weight loss. The typical pattern of illness is a series of minor infections which will respond if the right treatment is provided, followed by more virulent infectious diseases leading to rapid decline and death.
Even if sufficient hospital beds were available, there is a strong case to be made for managing minor illnesses at home, where the care is likely be cheaper and more convenient (for both patient and family), and where patients will be less exposed to other infections.
Similarly, as the patient approaches the terminal stage of the disease, many people express a preference for palliative care at home amongst family members, rather than the anonymity (and expense) of death in hospital. (10)
The formative thinking behind the Home Care Model in Cambodia was based on the framework of continuum of care and its potential application to the Cambodia situation, coupled with an awareness of the limitations and lessons learned from other programmes. The following section provides an outline of the development of the Cambodia programme.
Footnotes
(9) Joint Ministry of Health/NGO Pilot Project on Home and Community Care for People with HIV/AIDS, Cambodia, February 1998 - February 1999.
(10) AIDS Action, May 1996. "Home and Hospital"
This approach of comprehensive care across the continuum has provided a successful framework for both policy and implementation of AIDS-related programmes in SE Asia, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. The approach is particularly suited to Cambodia (9) , which is characterised by:
- a severe shortage of hospital beds to cope with the number of predicted AIDS patients (there are less than 1500 beds in Phnom Penh available for all medical conditions)
- a population where only an insignificant minority of PLHA are able to afford current prophylactic drug therapies
- a high incidence within PLHA of advanced opportunistic infections, largely untreated due to the low capacity of health services
- existing familiarity with the majority of common symptoms associated with HIV/AIDS
Cambodia has a rapidly increasing number of PLHA presenting with a range of common symptoms including headaches, fever, diarrhoea, skin and oral infections and weight loss. The typical pattern of illness is a series of minor infections which will respond if the right treatment is provided, followed by more virulent infectious diseases leading to rapid decline and death.
Even if sufficient hospital beds were available, there is a strong case to be made for managing minor illnesses at home, where the care is likely be cheaper and more convenient (for both patient and family), and where patients will be less exposed to other infections.
Similarly, as the patient approaches the terminal stage of the disease, many people express a preference for palliative care at home amongst family members, rather than the anonymity (and expense) of death in hospital. (10)
The formative thinking behind the Home Care Model in Cambodia was based on the framework of continuum of care and its potential application to the Cambodia situation, coupled with an awareness of the limitations and lessons learned from other programmes. The following section provides an outline of the development of the Cambodia programme.
Footnotes
(9) Joint Ministry of Health/NGO Pilot Project on Home and Community Care for People with HIV/AIDS, Cambodia, February 1998 - February 1999.
(10) AIDS Action, May 1996. "Home and Hospital"