An appointment with Dr. Marisa: Prevention, Empathy, and Inclusion
Teléfonica Tower in San Salvador is a well-known landmark where many representative events have taken place in El Salvador. It also has many offices with young people working in call centers. Mediclinic, a private laboratory partner working with Asociación PASMO under USAID’s Prevention, Care, and Treatment project, also has one of its three sites in this Tower and this is where we spoke to Dr. Marisa Chahin, its Medical Coordinator.
When asked, Marisa, a professional and kind woman with a warm smile, describes herself as a loving, understanding, and hardworking mother. For the past 6 years at MediClinic she has received all kinds of patients. Although she did not have any prior and specific resources or tools to address issues around HIV and sexual diversity, she and her team did their best
“I think the challenge was making sure we were being truly inclusive and not discriminating in any way. We didn’t know if we were using the correct inclusive language, so what we tried to do was to make them feel comfortable, but we didn’t know if we were doing it right.”.
In 2023, Asociación PASMO approached MediClinic as part of efforts to expand access to HIV prevention services for vulnerable populations through private sector partners who receive extensive training, awareness and monitoring processes to offer quality and stigma-free services. After Mediclinic completed these steps to begin providing services under the project, Marisa describes her satisfaction.“It was a rewarding experience because we were not only providing services, but also helping reduce sexually transmitted infections”.describes doctor Marissa with a wide smile.
Currently, Asociación PASMO provides several prevention services such as free HIV/syphilis testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to at-risk users through a network of 27 private testing and clinic sites in El Salvador, totaling 141 private sites in four countries across the Central American region. Additionally, in El Salvador, all private providers in the network have completed a sensitization process known as “stigma and discrimination-free zones” under the project’s broader Generation Zero initiative and human rights strategy. From October to December 2023, 70% of all reactive cases identified by Asociación PASMO in EL Salvador were identified through private sector partners contributing to the project’s HIV diagnosis and linkage efforts in the country.
For Marisa, participating in the HIV project project has had an impact on her life, as she expresses enthusiasm while describing her experience. “The sensitization process was very important, not only professionally but also personally because it helped me get along with people in my environment”.
She, and 16 coworkers from MediClinic, including administrative staff, laboratory technicians, doctors and more, completed the “Generación Cero” sensitization process, and, in an event held in the context of World AIDS Day 2023, all three MediClinic sites were identified as “stigma and discrimination-free zones”.
La doctora Marisa se siente optimista acerca del futuro y comenta: “Dr. Marisa feels optimistic about the future. “Here at Mediclinic we make sure all our patients feel included and happy to receive quality care with kindness in all the services we offer”.
