|
Last year, the large, concrete compound was just another truck stop on the national highway which cuts through the baking, red earth plains of Andhra Pradesh.
Today, it's a spotless refuge for seriously ill HIV/AIDS patients. Here doctors, nurses and counsellors turn fragile lives around, free of charge.
Many of the skeletal patients carried across the centre's threshold are in the terrible, final stages of AIDS, says resident doctor, Muni Krishna. Fear of being shunned, means too many people hide their HIV status and don't seek help until they are critically ill, he says.
In some cases it is too late. But, more than 90 percent of patients rise from their hospital beds and walk out unaided, their health restored sufficiently to look for work. Just as importantly, they've learned how to access future support beyond these walls.
"Before I came here I had completely lost hope," says 25-year old HIV positive widow, Rama Devi, through tears. Last year her husband died, rejected by his parents and without palliative care. The Freedom Foundation facility had not yet opened. Today, her six-year-old daughter Sanja is an in-patient, but Rama's own health has improved enough to take a job as a sales assistant in a nearby town. Keshav, too, is preparing for a new life. He's well educated and optimistic he'll find work in a bank.
|
