Ho — A Ho-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), New Seed International has carried the campaign on HIV/AIDS, and care for AIDS patients, to a higher level, as the NGO has built a special clinic and school, to take care of AIDS patients, and their children, at Sokode-Gborgame, in the Ho municipality.

The twenty-six bed capacity clinic, called the Palliative Clinic, said to be the first of its kind in the country, would focus on taking care of terminally ill patients, including HIV/AIDS patients, cancer, and any other life-threatening illness.

The Volta Regional Director of New Seed International, Mr. Livinus Aquah-Jackson, who made this known to The Chronicle, at the inaugural ceremony of the clinic, explained that the establishment of the facility became necessary, in view of the fact that families were finding it extremely difficult to care for their relatives, who were bedridden as a result of HIV/AIDS or other illness.

He said it was as a result of this, that relatives run away from patients, and stigmatized them, making such patients helpless. This attitude, he noted, was not helping the country in the fight against the HIV/AIDS disease, and called for a change.

Mr. Aquah-Jackson stressed the need to provide the needed care for AIDS patients, who were denied such opportunities, adding that the clinic would bridge the gap, and provide adequate care for terminally ill patients with diseases like HIV/AIDS, to help prolong their life span.

The New Seed International Director said, even though the clinic was established in the Volta Region, it would not discriminate against patients, as it would take care of rejected and neglected terminally ill patients from other regions .

Another useful purpose of the clinic, Mr. Aquah-Jackson said, was that it would serve as a research center for medical practitioners, both internal and abroad, to learn much about the different stages of changes AIDS patients reach, when they are bedridden, and adopt clinical strategies to help them, as well as to come up with new ways of handling such patients.

He said as at now, the Center was concentrating on the Sokode community, where the organization was intensifying its educational activities on healthy lifestyles, as it provides free medical services to the people, and used the opportunity to advise the people to adhere to health education by experts, in order to keep a healthy society.

Mr. Aquah-Jackson pointed out that his outfit had identified that there more orphans in the Region, as parents of the children had died through the HIV/AIDS disease, and that such children were not being cared for by relatives, hence his organization was building a school for such children, to ensure that were given basic education in line with government policy.

He also disclosed that a skills-training centre was established, to train young women to acquire various kills like batik-making, to enable them generate some sort of income for themselves, to save them from engaging in multiple relationships with their male counterparts, which would lead to contracting of the deadly disease.