HAITI / AIDS HEALTH WORKERS

The Accompagnateur Project (Community Health Workers) in rural Haiti helps nearly 5,000 AIDS patients, delivering antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) and educating them about their disease. But with a global recession in full swing, the program is facing budget cuts, beginning with the social services they offer patients. MINUSTAH

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:16
• Production Date: 30 November 2009
• Asset Language: Original
• Subject Topical: HEALTH SERVICES; DISEASE PREVENTION; DISEASE CONTROL
• Geographic Subject: HAITI; UNITED NATIONS STABILIZATION MISSION IN HAITI - MINUSTAH
• MAMS Id: U091130b

Description

STORY: HAITI / AIDS HEALTH WORKERS
TRT: 2.16
SOURCE: MINUSTAH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: CREOLE / NATS

DATELINE 19 NOVEMBER 2009, CANGE, HAITI

Shotlist

1. Med shot, man’s face, walking
2. Med shot, feet walking on a road
3. Tilt up, man passing pills to a sick woman
4. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Roosevelt Dorsicat, Accompagnateur, (Community Health Worker:
“Our work is so important. We are helping people with the disease stay healthy. If we Community Health Workers weren’t here, these people wouldn’t make it, because these people need medical follow-up. Without it, they’d be finished.”
5.Close up, man filling out form
6.SOUNDBITE (Creole) Rosette Pierre, AIDS patient :
“He helps me in a lot of ways. If I can’t take my meds because my stomach is empty, or I am hungry, he finds me some food.”
7. Pan right, exterior, hospital complex
8. Wide shot, patient intake center
9. Tilt down, bags of serum pan to patients in beds
10. Close up, HIV/AIDS program logo
11. Wide shot, exterior, HIV/ AIDS intake center
12. Wide shot, doctor receiving a patient
13. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Dr. Leopold Fenelon, Director of TB/HIV program:
“Thanks to them, we have many patients now who have been on ARVs for more than ten years and many more patients who maintain healthy CD4 counts.”
14. Close up, filling out a form
15. Med shot, Acompagnateur waits for meds
16. Med shot, Accompagnateur receives meds
17. Med shot, nurse fills out form
18. Med shot, pharmacist distributing pills (not ARVs) to patients
19. Close up, patients’ faces through the pharmacy window
20. Wide shot, woman exiting rural house
21. Close up, back of woman’s head in silhouette
22. SOUNDBITE (Creole) “Marie” (not real name), AIDS patient:
“This year, I got much less money than before. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to put the kids in school, but it’s too little money, it’s hard.”
23. Wide shot, Haiti’s mountains
24. Various shots, Accompagnateur walking through field

Storyline

Every day, Roosvelt Doriscat is up at dawn, walking around the hills outside his village in rural Haiti. It’s his job. And people’s lives depend on it.

He is one of Haiti’s 1,500 “Accompagnateurs”, or Community Health Workers, who deliver antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to AIDS patients. He’s the one who makes sure his patients take the right drugs at the right time, every day.

SOUNDBITE (Creole) Roosevelt Dorsicat, Accompagnateur, (Community Health Worker:
“Our work is so important. We are helping people with the disease stay healthy. If we Community Health Workers weren’t here, these people wouldn’t make it, because these people need medical follow up. Without it, they’d be finished.”

SOUNDBITE (Creole) Rosette Pierre, AIDS patient :
“He helps me in a lot of ways. If I can’t take my meds because my stomach is empty, or I am hungry, he finds me some food.”

The Accompagnateur project is run by the Partners in Health hospital in Cange. The facility serves nearly one million patients per year, free of charge, for everything from diabetes to broken bones.

Accompagnateurs are liaisons between doctors and patients. They come to the hospital once a month to pick up ARVs and drop off reports about patient progress.

The HIV/AIDS program is one of its biggest success stories. Accompagnateurs supervise nearly 5,000 people on AIDS treatment, with an adherence of 90 percent.

SOUNDBITE (Creole) Dr. Leopold Fenelon, Director of TB-HIV program:
“Thanks to them, we have many patients now who have been on ARVs for more than ten years and many more patients who maintain healthy CD4 counts.”

The AIDS program’s high annual budget – nearly USD$13 million – makes the project difficult to replicate. And with a global recession in full swing, Partners in Health is facing budget cuts, starting with the social services they offer to patients.

After five years on AIDS treatment, this woman is feeling the economic crunch. The hospital has always helped her to buy food, pay rent and school fees. She’s hidden her identity out of fear of discrimination.

SOUNDBITE (Creole) “Marie” (not real name), AIDS patient:
“This year, I got much less money than before. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to put the kids in school, but it’s too little money, it’s hard.”

An Accompagnateur is a lifeline, bringing health care and ARV treatment out into remote areas where doctors can’t reach, in addition to educating people about the cause of their disease.

It’s a job Haitians cannot afford to lose - bringing help, medication and a longer life to AIDS patients in rural Haiti.