Simply stated, treatment is the key. Without it people have little incentive to be tested. HIV and other infectious diseases then become topics of superstition or non-topics by way of stigma, silence and denial.

When treatment is available to communities and families this simple reality is a catalyst for change.

But availability must mean more than requiring people to line up far from home for hours on end - or simply prescribing drugs. It means decentralizing care and reaching into communities, as well as focusing on whole families.

It also means being alive to the economic, cultural and spiritual realities of indigenous peoples. CharisHealth believes that medicine at its most genuine is a form of social justice. This conception serves to drive no agenda except that of heeding all the necessary elements of successful care in crisis scenarios. Both treatment and availability must take on a wider scope. Without such a comprehensive framework, one that sees the body as a people, the best drugs in the world will ultimately fail.

Nothing in a bottle can address the important dimensions of awareness, prevention, stigma reduction and adherence. And yet these are all critical components to the management of infections disease. In our experience these key factors are driven to the forefront when real treatment becomes available. More importantly, the reality of treatment must work its way into the tissue of communal recognition. It's this shared recognition that is paramount.

But while winning this is no simple task, the reward comes in seeing appreciation reflected in the eyes of others. Recognition revolves around respect and putting care into action. It means treating people as equals, who only need aid in getting to the point where they can help themselves. It means treating people's emotional and spiritual needs within the wider scope where lives are lived.

Within this wider scope of care CharisHealth delivers a system based on augmenting the efficacy of mainline medicines and anti-retroviral agents. Utilizing proprietary supplements and proven nutriceuticals with safe and documented histories, our program works by pulling together a wide range of key elements:

Recruiting HIV and Infectious Disease Specialists with advanced and up-to-date modular training programs

Ensuring quality blood laboratory work and longitudinal record keeping

Utilizing network technology to disseminate data, establish virtual expert communities, and facilitate international communication

Employing the best available treatments for HIV, opportunistic infections, TB and other chronic diseases

Buttressing treatments with safe medicinal aids to reduce toxicity and improve metabolism

Leverage treatment as a means to further prevention, awareness, and adherence, as well as disarming stigmas

Extending treatment to include and encompass emotional, spiritual well being with sensitivity to the cultural surround

Developing relationships with mainline medical institutions to refer complex cases and/or pathology beyond our clinical scope.

Encouraging male leadership in progressively addressing gender issues and epidemiological drivers

Keeping abreast of and employing the lessons of others engaged in fighting disease in resource poor settings

Working collaboratively with faith-based organizations and NGO's both in directly combating chronic disease and in communal/economic transformation projects.

Treatment then, along with an on-going synthesis of key strategies and resources, is the fulcrum of our approach. Driving this strategy a conviction that the prevailing hospice mentality and an attitude of despair can give way to an embrace of life.

Making a difference ultimately means more than knowing it takes hard work for such goals to see the light of day. It's about doing until you see the light in someone else's eyes.

"Modern medicines and comprehensive treatment programs offer hope to the millions affected by HIV, TB and other illness, but the inability of existing healthcare systems to cope with patient needs, to human need at the limit, highlights the desperate need for a new approach. The CharisHealth System advances on this front, restoring health and restoring lives."

Terry J. Wild, Dr/NMP
President
CharisHealth