Monday, June 27, 2011

U.S. HIV/AIDS Funding Cuts





The following is a message on the status of the HIV/AIDS program at Faith Alive Hospital, from Dr. Chris Isichei, founder. As government funding decreases for HIV/AIDS, it becomes increasingly more important for private contributions to increase to fill this funding gap. Please pray with us for the Faith Alive patients.

I returned from a trip [for training at the Haggai Institute] and met with our team yesterday over a decision to halt fresh enrollment of newly diagnosed HIV cases into our program whether ARVs [Anti-Retrovirals] or Care [due to U.S. funding cuts]. We were however advised to refer to certain sites that still have vacancies.

On my first day back to work, we had about 15 new cases most insisting they will not go anywhere but rather die in Faith Alive. We had no choice but to accompany them to the various places we referred them to and assured them that they will continue to be part of Faith Alive family. We will follow them up to the end wherever they may be. This helped to some extent. I have insisted that pregnant women and children be excluded while I work out something for them….

It has dawned on me with bleeding heart that with this God given vision, I will have to watch and see some persons turned back from specifically ART [Anti-Retroviral Treatment] services but I pray that the follow up program instituted by the U.S. government will still allow us impact them for Christ. God bless."

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