The country's first exclusive intensive care unit for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) has started functioning at the VHC Hospital in Chennai. The two bed unit has been set up in the Chennai based YRG Centre for AIDS Research and Education and will serve as the first such dedicated unit serving the PLWHA. The same will be equipped with a ventilator and suction equipment, state-of-the-art laboratory facilities and doctors will be present round the clock.
The Government Institute of Thoracic Medicine (GITM) hitherto has been the only hospital where patients with HIV/AIDS have been admitted. However, what will distinguish the abovementioned centre from the GITM is the ICU and ventilator support. Members of PLWHA have been time and again denied ventilator support in various government and private hospitals, and thus the same at the abovementioned centre would come handy.
This is the first such centre set up the YRG Centre for AIDS Research and Education. Currently it helps people with HIV/ AIDS to get treatment as outpatients.