On Day 4 of the Union Conference in Guadalajara, Blessina Kumar, CEO, and Rhea Lobo, Communications Officer, took part in a discussion in the theme Patient-Centred Care – What Does That Really Mean? – a session which was supported by Journalists Against TB.

Stressing on the point that mindsets need to change, Blessina in her address said that we need to shift the dialogue from patient-centred care to person-centred care. She also reiterated that person-centred care is complete only when people who get diagnosed are treated, people who are treated get support to complete treatment and people who complete treatment have the support to get back to work.

Rhea, on the other hand, spoke about her personal experience and frustrations in accessing care and the lack of counselling and treatment literacy. “While patient-centred care is very important, we need to focus first on quality of care because that is so poor – people who are affected by TB are changing dozens of doctors after getting misdiagnosed or given the wrong dosage of medicines — at the end of the day a person who is affected by TB just wants to be cured,” she added.

This session cleared the air about what patient-centred care truly means and valuable contributions were made that gave food for thought to all those who were present – particularly on the steps forward to ensure that a holistic approach to care is designed.