SPECIALIZED HOME CARE FOR PATIENTS WITH AIDS - AN EXPERIMENT IN ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

Patients with AIDS are permanently dependent on medical and technical nursing care. During a certain phase of the disease some of the patien ts have to visit the out-patient clinic of the hospital for regular tr eatment. It was noticed that AIDS patients find these visits a severe burden. Therefore in Rotterdam an experiment has been started to provi de them the technical-medical and nursing care at home instead of at t he out-patient clinic. During the experiment, specialized hospital nur ses visited the patients at home. They worked in close collaboration w ith the community nurses. An exploratory study was carried out to asse ss the prospects and difficulties of this new kind of home care for AI DS patients from a medical, psycho-social and organizational point of view. The results suggested that it is possible to relocate the techni cal-medical and nursing care from the out-patient clinic to the patien ts' home. This specialized home care is seen as desirable from the per spectives of the AIDS patients and informal and professional caregiver s. However, some organizational aspects, like the co-ordination and co mmunication among caregivers and the availability of the specialized h ospital nurses during the weekend, must be improved in the future.