Project pays for homeless people to have TB treatment

Throughout the years, the number of cases of tuberculosis recorded among the Czech population has decreased significantly. One exception, however, is the so-called risk group, among which homeless people are the most affected. In order to attend to this problem, Czech doctors specialising in tuberculosis have been working on a project, which is to help the homeless fight infectious diseases. Dita Asiedu spoke to Ludek Trnka of the tuberculosis unit at Prague's Bulovka hospital who has been leading the project since its launch in March 2002:

Project pays for homeless people to have TB treatment

Photo: CTK

"Unfortunately, homeless people are a special group in the population, which is not co-operative enough and therefore we decided to cooperate with NGOs, such as charities, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and so on. There are about ten of them in Prague which deal with the homeless. So, we entered in a contract with these associations and promised them that we would give them money, not in cash but in the form of coupons, which they would give to the homeless that they have under their own observance and if these people are willing to go to specialists to be examined with x-rays and bacteriological examinations, they are provided with these coupons, which have a value of some one hundred Czech crowns, only if they attend to the physician. Up to the end of this year almost one thousand homeless people were examined by this system."

So out of the one thousand homeless people that were examined so far, what percentage had TB?

"I can't tell you the exact percentage but among the one thousand people, 15 were hospitalised based on the x-ray examination. Among theses fifteen people up to now, about ten have active TB. If you calculate this amount, it is more than one hundred times more than among the normal population."

How many homeless people are there in the Czech Republic and does the project only focus on Prague?

"We started in Prague because we got a grant from the City of Prague. We know that there is an estimation of ten thousand homeless people in Prague. In other big cities we are sure that there are also a lot of homeless people. Therefore, the Minister of Health sent us a letter at the end of the last year saying that the ministry is very satisfied with the activity and that it would support the extension of this activity to other big cities in Northern Bohemia and Moravia."