Abstract:

Care and Treatment Clinic [CTC], is one among the out patients clinic of Bugando Medical Centre for HIV clients that saves patients from Mwanza region and lake zone. A part from CTC other HIV/AIDS programs offered include provider initiated testing and counseling (PITC), Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) and prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT).

This elective field aimed at learning on how care and treatment clinic is conducted at Bugando medical centre. It also involved exploring and measuring the knowledge of their clients about HIV infection, drug adherence and society perception on people living with HIV.

In the field I encountered several challenges like language barrier, ability to convince the newly diagnosed HIV positive clients that they can live a healthy life, convincing the discordant couples not to divorce each other, some clients were unwilling to tell their partners about their health status.

Knowledge developed in the field included understanding clinical diagnosis and management of HIV and opportunistic infections, factors affecting drug adherence, society perception and knowledge about HIV infection.

Recommendations from the fields are and follows, privacy and secrecy of the client should be maintained, teaching techniques in adherence classes should be improved and services should be provided as directed in Tanzania national guideline of HIV management.