Zambart recently convened a two-day meeting of stakeholders to participate in the Expanded Total Facility Approach (e-TFA) Project Scale Up Retreat at Protea Chisamba Hotel, Chisamba.
HIV- stigma and discrimination in health facilities continue to limit access to quality HIV prevention and treatment services worldwide. These challenges take many forms, including long waiting times, denial of care, verbal abuse and unauthorized disclosure of a person’s HIV status. Both clinical and non-clinical health facility staff can contribute to these practices
The problem is made worse by intersecting stigmas, as people who are already marginalized are often the same individuals who face discrimination when seeking HIV services. As a result, stigma negatively affects access to healthcare, self-managed care, mental and physical health outcomes, the wellbeing of health workers, and overall population health.
Despite its impact, stigma reduction is not routinely integrated into health service delivery, health worker training, or national health systems at a scale sufficient to achieve lasting change.
YET, stigma reduction in health facilities is rarely a routine aspect of service delivery or training of health workers. Or, integrated and scaled within national health systems at a level needed for sustained, large-scale impact.
The Total Facility Approach (TFA) is a comprehensive strategy designed to reduce HIV- stigma and discrimination within health facilities. It promotes the involvement of all staff (clinical and non-clinical) and all departments within a health facility. The approach has/has been implemented in Ghana and Tanzania, where it has demonstrated significant reductions in stigma and improved uptake of HIV services among marginalized populations.
Funded by the Gates Foundation, the TFA in Zambia is being implemented at Choma General Hospital and Macha Mission Hospitals.
The purpose of the retreat was to develop a scale-up strategy informed by findings from the first two years of the project.