The CIHEB Entrench team today hosted representatives from the Office of the US Global Aids Coordinator (OGAC), the County Health Management Team, and CDC Kenya at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital (JOOTRH).
The team was received by the JOOTRH CEO, Dr. George Rae, who gave the history of the hospital and an overview of the services offered. They were later taken through various services offered at the hospital, including the Comprehensive Care Clinic, Gender Based Violence Recovery Center (GBVRC), Outpatient department (OPD), and the Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) Clinic.
JOOTRH is a center of excellence for HIV care, treatment, and prevention services. As at the end of September, it offered ART services to close to 7,000 patients. The hospital has a Gender Based Violence recovery center (GBVRC) that has offered high-quality, comprehensive care to violence survivors and a MAT Center that provides high-quality methadone treatment and psychosocial care to people who use drugs (PWUDS).
The ENTRENCH Program Director, Dr. Anita Nyabiage, helped the team appreciate the services that CIHEB-Kenya supports at the hospital. She noted that JOOTRH, working with CIHEB-Kenya, uses various strategies to retain clients on care at the Medically Assisted Therapy (MAT) clinic. These include building the capacity of peer educators through training; strengthening the linkage between the center and PWID Drop-in center (DICE) to ease tracking of missed appointments; sensitization of law enforcers on MAT care, and establishing support groups coordinated by a local People Who Inject Drugs (PWIDS) and Civil Society Organizations (CSO).
The team later visited Naselica Drop-In Center (DiCe). They were pleased to learn the strategies that were implemented at the dice, including; engagement and continual capacity building of existing peer educators who recruit peers into their cohorts and follow them up at designated hotspots, a multi-month dispensation of antiretroviral medication among stable HIV-infected patients done on-site and through community-based differentiated model (DCM), implementation of peer-led outreach activities at designated hotspots where PrEP refill is done and the establishment of peer support groups and PrEP clubs at the DiCe has enabled peers to share their experiences interactively, cross learn and keep appointments.
