Select government doctors from teaching and district hospitals in the state will soon be designated as coordinators between various medical departments of their respective hospitals and will be responsible for ensuring that all HIV positive cases and AIDS patients are treated and admitted. These doctors are, for the first time, being given hands-on training in management and treatment of HIV and AIDS patients at the Grand Medical College, Mumbai, by specialists.

As part of this programme, the doctor interacts with HIV positive people, diagnoses their 'opportunistic diseases,' prescribes drugs and also conducts follow-up check-ups to see if the condition of the patient has improved. The government doctors who undergo the training will also be referral persons for HIV positive patients coming to their hospital from community health centres, area hospitals and primary healthcare centres.

Once an HIV positive patient comes to a government hospital, these doctors, in coordination with the head of the respective medical department, will ensure that patients are given treatment, confidentiality is maintained and no isolation of patients is made. People who go to the voluntary counselling and testing centres (VCTCs) and sexually transmitted disease clinics located at the hospitals or outside can also be referred to the selected doctors for preliminary investigation and counselling.

According to K Damayanti, Project Director, AP AIDS Control Society, initially it was planned to train two doctors from each teaching hospital in the state and one each from the district hospitals. That means a total of 43 government doctors will act as coordinators. However, till date, only14 doctors had volunteered to undergo this training. She was hopeful that more doctors would respond to this and attend the training.