The Hindu: Shrill Voices, Sweet Music, and HIV Education

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/shrill-voices-sweet-music-and-hiv-education/article1961707.ece

Shrill voices, sweet music and HIV education

Speaking up: A street play to create awareness about AIDS prevention being staged at the Government Stanley Hospital in Chennai on Tuesday.

Staff Reporter

Street play conducted in Government Stanley Hospital

CHENNAI: The usually silent Government Stanley Hospital reverberated with shrill voices and music interspersed with laughter on Tuesday evening.

A street play conducted at the hospital drew the scattered crowd there to learn about HIV prevention during a health education programme.

The 20-minute play was centered around two families with members affected by HIV and sexually transmitted diseases and their ignorance about the treatment available.

The staging of the play was one of the initiatives to create awareness of HIV/AIDS and to dispel myths.

The programme was jointly organised by the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society, Department of Transfusion Medicine of Stanley Medical College and Hospital, and Nalamdana Charitable Trust. Besides elaborating on the reasons for the spread of HIV, the artists also sought to create awareness of the treatment and free consultation provided at hospitals.

At the end of the street play held on the hospital premises doctors and counsellors responded to queries posed by the audience.

N. Rajakumar, head of the Department of Transfusion Medicine, Government Stanley Hospital, said such programmes on various issues were to be organised every month to reach those who attended to the patients at the hospital and to those who come to visit the patients.

Voluntary blood donation would be the theme for the street play to be enacted next month.

Pamphlets and feedback forms would also be distributed on the occasion.

This is the first initiative taken to create awareness among visitors to government hospitals, he added.

TANSACS project director Supriya Sahu and dean of Stanley Medical College and Hospital Mythili Bhaskaran were present on the occasion.