Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 17

More than one lakh members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Punjab will be benefited from the state’s first HIV/AIDS testing clinic which was opened in the city today. The clinic will provide respite to more than 200 LGBT community members working as sex workers in the city.

It was inaugurated by Dr Alfred, pathologist from the Civil Hospital, Jalandhar. The centre will be run by Shaan Foundation as a part of project SAMARTH (Strengthen Abilities to Manage and Respond Effectively to HIV and AIDS in India) with support from Elton John AIDS Foundation. The advisory board formed for the clinic has members from the community itself.

“Although we have LGBT population running in lakhs in the state, we were able to reach only 20,000 so far under our last project “Pehchan” which ran in the state for five years. Due to the stigma attached to the community, members are hesitant to go to any of the HIV/AIDS testing centres fearing further stigma and so they die forlorn,” said Deepak Rana, clinic manager, Samarth Clinic and president, Shaan Foundation.

He said the clinic had hired MBBS doctor and a nurse from the community which will help the community members to come forward and get themselves tested for the dreaded disease at an early stage.

Major goals of the project include 100 per cent registration of MSM, to make members undergo HIV testing at least once during the project period, to enroll 70 per cent of the LGBT community for the follow-up testing and to register them for pre –ART services.

Even when the state government has been running nearly 26 different health schemes for the general public, none was launched specifically for the community of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders to date.

The country’s much acclaimed NGO Alliance India in collaboration with Geneva-based NGO Global Fund had run a project, “Pehchan”, for the LGBT community in the state for five years which was wrapped up in March this year. This left the community in lurch as the Punjab AIDS Control Society too refused to take the project ahead.

Following this, Shaan Foundation, with a member base of over 2,000 community members from the LGBT approached Alliance India once again and requested them to grant them a project to further look after community members. It was only in August this year that the project was finally granted to Shaan Foundation. Staff members were called and trained at the National AIDS Research Institute and were certified as clinical management trainers.