The meeting @ UNAIDS

Micheal Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Dr.Chinkholal Thangsing, AHF Asia Pacific Bureau Chief, met with Mr.JVR Prasada Rao, Director, UNAIDS Task Force Team for Asia Pacific in New Delhi at the UNAIDS Office.

Mr.JVR PRasada Rao who headed the UNAIDS Task Force Team for Asia Pacific from the UNAIDS Office in Bangkok has been highly appreciative of AHF contribution to the fight against HIVAIDS and has been extremely pleased that AHF is expanding its assistance and help to various countries in the Asia Pacific Region. Mr.Rao had recommended India, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Pakistan, Nepal as some of the country which AHF should focus on in the first one to two years.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation is already present in India, China and Cambodia. AHF also recieved the official permit to operate in Vietnam in February 2006.

A chain of Interesting events!

I felt I must share this and I am sure all of us or many of us have had such similar experiences that made us resign to the fact '...what will happen will happen, irrespective of how careful or careless, how concern or unconcern you are...'

Well, the day looks good for a start as it always is the sun came out bright and sunny. The air crisp and clear though there was a blanket of fog hugging the ground. This is post Holi a day after the festival of colors was celebrated and the housekeeping staff having overdose of work as they had to clean and perform extra work to remove the color stains on the floor, ground and elsewhere. I look forward to going to work at the office and was driving down the unusually free highway to Delhi. I was pleased and was happily proceeding down the road when the mobile rang. I was smarter this time as I had the earpieces connected and just flicked the button to listen to the voice on the other end. It was a distant relative and he narrated a story of deal gone awary and needed my assistnace to solve the problem. I was happy to hear from this person for this was the first time ever that I heard his voice on the phone and maybe over 25 years since I last show him. Little did I know that this will trigger off a series of events which needed to be shared to you on this spot.

* As if answer to this person request I saw a hoard of distant persons descending upon me and that the event that followed was funny and simply unbelievable as I saw contorted and twisted egoistic, arrogant, loud and cheap interaction with them - that I have to gently asked them with a headache off my turf.
* I work on my laptop and then managed to delete old files which I actually wanted to save.
* The constant phone calls from patient outside Delhi had been difficult as the results of patients Viral Load, CD4 etc. reports came in 48 hours late.
* Drove for home and had pull in Sahara Mall to pay communication bills. Manage to pay the first set then --
* Airtel computer servers went under - went down; a staff created an innovative way to pull out the bills but was already too late for I was already running down the stairs (as the lift is too slow).
* Took the road and was caught in the middle of the road by the yellow light turing red.
* An unmanned area on normal days - I saw a traffic cop jump up to book me for being caught in the middle of a road with red light.
* Rushed for home taking a new road and manage to get home in in record time without actually speeding.
*Call for a cab on the way home (thank you mobile phone)
* The next half hour was a chain of well oiled, well choreograph performance that I should and could get a place in the Guiness book of some records for the accomplishments in getting ready and of course I had to thank Jane my niece who help me get into this home Guiness book of home records (if there is such a record).
* Took a cab for the aiport.
* Cab run out of gas on the way to the aiport.
* Manage to get to a gas station and got gas.
* The cab after five minutes down the road got a flat (puncture).
* The driver fixed the flat in record - 4 minutes.
* Reached Indira Gandhi International Airport in record time.

Well - an exciting, exhausting,extremely taxing day. I guess once in a while as the earth revovles around the sun and the sun revovles around bigger sun in the universe - someone, somewhere, sometime,somehow is sucked into this kind of revolution and enter into this kind of chains of multifaced happening. Is it due to the stars, the horoscope man would sure say yes. But, as for me - I guess itstelling me that I needed time to relax, time to reflex, time to meditate, time to let off steam, and time to smell the roses - whether I want it or not. It might also be as I guessed ...a sign from above to remind me saying ....'Hey, Son, take it easy, here I am- and - have some fun remembering me'....

March 17th 2006. Bangkok International Airport

The Kids from the Hills

They were three of them and they had left behind the only home they knew and have following their surrogate grandmother to visit Delhi. The ride in the Rajdhani Express from Gauhati was something they enjoyed and remembered with smile on their beautiful, tiny and little lovable faces. They hard remember that they had lost their parents who had suffered and succumbed to the epidemic of AIDS. They carried forward not only the genes of their biological parents by also the HIV virus a legacy from their parents. One is 8 , the other 6 and the youngest just 3 years;they were just so cute, tiny, so smiley, so innocent and very cheerful. None would ever think and believe that this children harbor and carry the lethal virus that destroy their immature immune system so viciously and so unsparingly each moment.

Their grandmother narrated their tales not only the medical history or treatment stories, but the challenge and the future of her grandchildten. I carried them on my lap, give them a hug and conduct medical examination to which they were so cooperative and unafraid. They were excited of everything, and everything inthe city are new to them. They were so happy to be in a big city and it was the first time they were out from the green, hilly resort they have in Kohima. They had not remembered much nor have memories of their parents to share but even if they had the colors and sights of the city surely made them forgot those troubling and sad memories. In anycase their parents ha left them and had since long been gone. They need to move on and races one with life filled with excitement and joy for one day at a time.

March 15 2006

The Touch

The day was as usual yet another busy day and it was already past midday when the nurse came peeping in at the HIV clinic at while I was examining a patient. I peer up from the case sheet and she was apologetic but told me that she had a case in the minor operation theater. She had suspected that I should be there after the OPD. The day moved one and just after 2 pm that I finally manage to get up and out of my chamber and hurried on to the minor theater.

I walked in the room to see a handsome young man of mid twenties who stands above six feet looking quite anxious yet calm on the bed in the room. He told me that he had been having a lump on his thighs for over a week and had been postponing a visit to the doctor so many times as he was afraid. He had injected and was obvious there was some inflammation and the question being - does he need minor surgery. He was sitting on the examination bed as I examined him. I gave a gentle palpation and felt for temperature and tried to assess whether he needed an incision and drainage examination. I was busy with the examination oblivious of the happenings at the surroundings.

The nurses were quite and there was this silence in the room as I looked up at those eyes brimming with tears as they came pouring down. He cried and in a while sobbed gently and I apologize and asked him whether I hurt him as I examined him. He could not answer me immediately but indicated that I didn't and as I persuaded him he in a soft whisper said that rang loud and clear in my mind and those around me ...." You touched me...". It was then that I realised the power of touch and its amazing healing powers.

PS: He went on to tell me that ever since he tested HIV positive he has been outcast and some physicians would not even touch him while conducting examinations.