Recently, I was informed that one of our Duyan Kids ("Duyan Kids refer to children with HIV who serve as beneficiaries of our Duyan Program) passed away. This was heartbreaking as we were assisting him and the mom years ago for their treatment by providing them counselling, medical assistance and at times financial assistance for transportation to ensure that the mom would not miss any of the check ups of ARV refills from the HIV and AIDS Treatment Hub.
At first, it was a smooth treatment, until the mom stopped coming back to hub. Of course that means, the kid stopped his treatment too. Soon, the mom died because of AIDS related infections. The young brother of the mom took charge and started to bring the kid back to the hospital. Because of inadherence, he was already taking the second line regimen.
Once again, the treatment became smooth sailing, until the parents took away the kid to Tarlac so that the young brother could work. From then on, we never heard of the kid anymore.
As part of our responsibility, both the Treatment Hub and Project Red Ribbon tried to look for the kid. We even thought to engage the DSWD to talk to the grandparents and in case they won't help the child to continue with his treatment to get the child and put in a shelter. However, it was really difficult.
Soon we found out that the child died.
Who is to be blamed here? Did we not do our part? Did the treatment hub not do enough to educate the next of kin on their responsibilities? Did we not engage the social welfare department early on which could have assessed the level ofd responsibility of the relatives to take care of the kid? Was stigma too great for the relatives not to save the child? Did poverty played a role in getting access to life saving treatment?
What we can do now is to contemplate and evaluate what went wrong. We need to assess the current situation that may possibly be the cause of his death. We have to continue to advocate so that no life, will once again be wasted because of indifference, of lack of education and awareness when we talk about HIV and AIDS.