Our home-care teams, comprising our former hospice patients and others living with AIDS, make regular home visits to over 600 patients from 60 slum communities in Bangkok.

Core Initiatives:

• To improve the quality of life of poor people living with HIV/AIDS, allowing them to reside in their family homes, receive proper health care, and live productive lives.
• To educate their families about prevention, care, and compassion.

History: The HDF has operated the city’s first and largest free AIDS hospice since 1993. Since anti-viral drugs became accessible, many of our patients have been able to return home to family. To prepare the families for their arrival and create a positive, life-affirming home environment, we established our Homecare Program in 1999.

Homecare Initiatives and Activities

Hospital group visits: We work with government hospitals and make monthly visits to groups of poor PLWA, conducting workshops on receiving and administering proper medication; insuring access to treatment; and assessing, maintaining, and strengthening health at home.

Mercy Centre-based counseling: We receive phone-in and walk-in inquiries from new patients, existing patients, and family members of PLWA - approximately 20 inquiries per day. In addition, our homecare patients have a direct line to inquiries about treatment, medication, and timely advice for medical and family problems and emergencies.

Hospital registration: HDF-Mercy Centre homecare staff assist in all facets of patient registration at government hospitals. Many of the poor PLWA lack identification papers required to receive government health benefits. In such cases, we assist in gaining the proper documents, a process that often requires travel to home provinces, paperwork, registration, long bureaucratic lines, and many impediments.

Transportation assistance to and from hospitals: Many patients are unable to carry themselves to a hospital on public transportation or lack the means to pay for transportation. We provide whatever assistance is required to ensure our patients visit their doctors for regular check-ups and hospital visits.

Home maintenance and repair: Many homecare patients live in squalid conditions, where it is difficult to maintain proper hygiene. We make home repairs whenever necessary and also help relocate families and provide emergency assistance for those facing eviction.

Nutrition: Nutritional supplements, rice, and dry foods.

Job placement, income-earning activities, and micro-loans: HDF Mercy-Centre helps place PLWA in both full- and part-time positions. We also provide micro-loans and emergency loans for PLWA and families registered in our homecare program to relieve debts and earn regular income.

Children’s Outreach Network:

We have initiated a network that brings together all the children we reach through our homecare programs, HIV positive and negative children alike, and unite them in regular activities with our own children living in Mercy Centre. Children from our homecare network now have a place, outside their own homes, where they know they will always be welcomed and loved.

The parents and families of these children also join together with our homecare staff at Mercy Centre and work together to resolve common issues, which include:

• Their children’s education. We visit schools whenever the children are experiencing discrimination and provide funding assistance whenever needed.
• Their children’s future. We work with the families to identify each child’s family support system, including grandparents, aunts and uncles who can care for and love these children in the event they are orphaned.
• Communication. It is critical to explain to these children the meaning of HIV, as well as their families’ HIV status. We teach the parents what we have learned from our own experience in communicating HIV/AIDS to our children.

General Homecare Program Benefits

• Advice regarding medication (where to get and how to take), the provision of nutritional and dry goods supplements, and all additional homecare assistance from HDF-Mercy Centre have boosted physical health and wellbeing and provided a higher, more rewarding quality of life with family.
• Counseling services have helped increase understanding of HIV/AIDS for both PLWA and family, reduced their fears, and produced more positive life-sustaining attitudes.
• Micro-loans and job placements have provided a regular income, a greater sense of integrity and self-worth, and a more positive outlook on life.
• Admission to the HDF-Mercy Centre hospice, when necessary, has assured that PLWA can receive respite and palliative care before returning home under the homecare program.

A Typical Success Story
Like many of our homecare patients, when Somchai first became too ill to support himself, his family wanted to move him permanently to a hospice, so they contacted us. An HDF homecare team visited Somchai at home and observed that he was suffering from uncontrolled skin infections. Since the infections did not appear life threatening, the team elected to first try treating Somchai at home and teach his family homecare skills. The infections disappeared quickly, Somchai’s health improved, and today Somchai drives a taxi part-time, supports himself, and is a valued member of his family.

Challenges
Ignorance, discrimination, guilt, shame, and poverty.

Related Mercy Centre HIV/AIDS Programs:

Mothers' and Children's Home

Bridge-of Hope-Caring Centre

Education/Outreach

Related Photo Gallery:

Homecare Visit