125 family doctors and medical sisters of Odessa city medical centers will learn to lead HIV testing.
The series of trainings “HIV rapid-testing and counseling” for the family doctors and nurses is taking place in Odessa in frames of the pilot project “Sustainability of HIV services” which is being held by “Way Home” Odessa Charity Foundation and the Odessa municipal council under the support of USAid. Spreading the access to the rapid HIV-testing as well as the counseling on the topic of HIV/AIDS in the area become the main activities that will allow the project to fulfill its strategic aim: by 2020 90% of people living with HIV should know about their status. This will allow the people to have an access to the prevention services and the treatment.
Five trainings for the doctors and nurses (2 days long each) have taken place in Odessa from February 20 – March 6. The participants were researching the current HIV/AIDS situation in the world and in Ukraine, learned the legal base in the HIV area, attaining skills of documentation work and, of course, are learning methods of HIV-counseling and testing.
Trainings for the medical stuff were leaded by the experienced trainers: Valentina Lukyanenko, Oxana Tereschenko and Liana Kovtunovich.
“HIV testing should be integrated into the activities of the centers for the primal medical and social help in the area. Thos approach will make the HIV-services much more available for the people, the testing impact will be widened – all this will allow to control the epidemics of the HIV in Ukraine. Moreover, rapid testing will become one of the free medical services to the clients of the Centers for the primal social and medical help”, – Liana Kovtunovich, the trainer and the head of the regional Center for AIDS prevention and treatment.
“This course of trainings is one of the important steps towards implementing the service of the HIV testing and counseling in each of the primal help centers of Odessa. The specialists, who participated in the tranings now, will be able to start their work in the field already this summer, applying their skills at their working places, so that people of the city can reach testing and counseling services easier,” – Valentina Lukyanenko, the trainer and the doctor of highest qualification of the regional Center for AIDS prevention and treatment said.
To remind, the project “Sustainability of the HIV services” is already working in the two city centers, and by the end of June 2018 it is planned to implement it in all of the primal help centers of the city.
In March the other training will take place. It will be dedicated to the supervision process of the work of the doctors in the field. 25 doctors will be trained to supervise and evaluate the activities of the specialists in the field.
