Devoted to helping HIV+ kids

Bhandara: HIV+ve patients are often shunned by society as people prefer to maintain a distance from them. But, this woman activist has devoted her life taking care of 234 HIV+ve children of the district just as their mother would have done. Meet Rina Kanhekar who took specialized training in treating HIV-AIDS patients from Pune and had been working in Bhandara district. Kanhekar decided to help HIV patients after a relative died of AIDS. After her training, Kanhekar joined Sarathi Multipurpose Welfare Society and started working for them. Her works involves counselling AIDS patients, who have lost hope in life. So far, she has been able to take over 2,000 AIDS patients out of depression. She has also struggled for their inclusion in of Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana. The main hurdle in getting benefits of the scheme was keeping their identity confidential. “Talathis helped us and assured that the identities won’t be revealed,” she said. The talathi issues certificate for beneficiary of the Sanjay Gandhi Yojana. Now, these patients shall be given concession or free travel in ST buses like Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. Kanhekar says AIDS patients must be treated as normal persons. “Discordant family is the new issue where the male AIDS patients are being divorced by their wives,” she says. Her team is trying counsel such families and prevent separations. But, her biggest challenge is taking care of patients in the age group of 6 months to 18 yrs. “They got infected from their parents. There are 234 children in the district who are HIV positive. They need nutrition, medicine donations and special care,” she adds. She informed that the Bhandara branch of HDFC Bank has given scholarship of Rs2 lakh to HIV-affected students. But, more funds are needed and she is optimistic that society extend help to the children.

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