The International Center for Equal Healthcare Access

Program Overview
In 2002, the Vietnamese health authorities invited ICEHA to assist with the build-up of HIV/AIDS medical expertise within the Vietnamese public healthcare infrastructure.

Pilot phase: The pilot of this large-scale program was launched in Langson province over the course of eight months between January 2003 and August 2003. Langson province has 760,000 inhabitants and is considered one of the nation’s HIV hotspots, with an HIV prevalence rate 3.5 times higher than the national rate. The program consisted of training provided through a mixture of workshops and periods of hands-on coaching by our volunteer HIV healthcare providers.
Expansion: As a result of our success in Langson, the Vietnamese government and our collaborating indigenous NGO, the Highland Education Development Organization, asked us to expand our initiative into two additional provinces: Lao Cai and Hoa Binh. Prior to making antiretroviral medication widely available, the Vietnamese government would like to ensure that the medications will be used correctly by healthcare providers and patients alike. In May 2004, the first set of workshops and coaching was provided in Lao Cai and Hoa Binh, with additional programs taking place in October 2004. The programs have been implemented in collaboration with amFAR (American Foundation for AIDS Research).
Impact: Every trained healthcare provider is able to provide care to 250 HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral treatment or more than 300 HIV-infected patients not yet on antiretroviral treatment and to communicate HIV prevention messages to an additional 5000 people per year. The ripple effect of training even a single physician is therefore great. By the end of 2004, ICEHA trained 400 physicians, resulting in increased capacity to provide care to 100,000 – 120,000 HIV-infected patients and to communicate HIV prevention messages to 2 million people. A report released by Treat Asia (amfAR) highlighted that until recently, Vietnam only had 20 physicians trained in HIV/AIDS, or one physician for every 11,250 HIV-infected patients. ICEHA’s programs therefore have already had a profound impact on the capacity of the healthcare system to respond to HIV.
Publicity: Our past workshops received impromptu visits from Prof. Dr. Phuong. Prof. Dr. Phuong is the former Minister of Health of Vietnam and was recently promoted to a Member of Vietnam’s Central Committee of the Party and Chairman of the Committee for Science and Education. The HEDO-ICEHA collaboration program has been highlighted extensively in local and international media and is the subject of a documentary movie in development.

Achievements

By the end of 2005 , ICEHA had provided training to 600 physicians
As a result of the training, the attitudes of healthcare providers vis-a-vis HIV infected patients have improved, prevention messages are being delivered to the population, the incidence of unsafe medical practices has decreased, and HIV care, even in the absence of antiretroviral medication, has been greatly enhanced.