Lutheran Medical Center To Train Caribbean Health Care Workers, Start Brooklyn Support Group for HIV-Positive People
The Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., has received a $3.4 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to develop a training program for community health care workers in the Caribbean as well as a peer support program for HIV-positive people from the Caribbean who are living in Brooklyn, the New York Daily News reports. The programs, which will be administered by the medical center's Caribbean-American Family Health Center in partnership with the Caribbean Women's Health Association, initially will focus on people who are living in or who are from Trinidad and Tobago. The hospital then hopes to expand the program to other Caribbean nations. "We know Trinidad and Tobago lacks a critical mass of trained health care workers to respond effectively to those infected and affected by [HIV/AIDS]," Dr. David John, medical director of the Caribbean-American Family Health Center, said, adding that at the end of 2001, there were an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 HIV-positive people in the country but only six health care providers, according to Reuters. Lutheran plans to spend $2 million over four years for the training program. In addition, Lutheran plans to establish a "culturally sensitive" peer support group for people from Trinidad and Tobago who have been affected by AIDS. "With HIV infection rates in the Caribbean among the highest in the world, and migration between there and the United States continuing at a steady pace, efforts like (these) are important to people in both areas," HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a statement released on Friday by Lutheran (Shelby, New York Daily News, 12/15).
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