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Table 3 Potential ways to address barriers encountered in accessing ART

From: ART access-related barriers faced by HIV-positive persons linked to care in southern Ghana: a mixed method study

Barrier

Possible way(s) to address barrier

Delay before care is received

- Establish more ART centres

- Train more caregivers

- Institute an individualised booking system so ART clients can choose different days to receive care

Long distance to treatment centres

- Establish more ART centres

- Implement occasional outreach programmes to care for ART clients

- Institute travel costs reimbursement schemes

- Create family, community, and peer support groups

Financial challenges

- Establish targeted social and economic safety net interventions for HIV+ persons e.g. conditional cash transfer programmes

- Include HIV+ persons, especially ART clients in LEAP programme

- Create family, community, and peer support groups

- Institute free/subsidised nutrition supplementation interventions

- Institute travel costs reimbursement schemes

Shortage of drugs and other commodities

- Allocate more financial resources, especially financial resources to ART

- Prevent wastage in the use of drugs and other commodities

- Reduce inefficiencies in management and use of medicines

Fear of side effects

- Educate ART client on how to properly administer medications

- Educate ART clients on possible side effects of different treatment regimens and how to minimise potential side effects

Stigmatisation

- Educate public on HIV/AIDS using both print and electronic media, including social media

- Institute anti-stigma interventions using community based and led strategies