At the moment CSC Rayong, is a wonderful example of the integration of activities to fight the problem of HIV/AIDS, with 7 projects scattered in the South Eastern region of Thailand that has a population of 7.000.000 people and 150.000 of them are living with HIV/AIDS.

Since opening in January 1996 until March the 31st 2010, the Camillian Social Center has touched the lives of 1670 people living with HIV/AIDS. Of this number 730 people have died due to complications related to HIV/AIDS and 940 have been given the opportunity to return to the community.

The Camillian Social Center provides care to poor and abandoned people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) that are in the terminal stage of AIDS. These people are referred to the Center by the Government Social Workers employed at the provincial and district hospitals. A full-time nurse and ten (10) assistant nurses provide the residents living with HIV/AIDS with excellent quality medical care. The ten (10) nursing assistants are PLWHA that at one time were patients at the Center. Because of the nursing care and proper nourishment they have recovered and are now helping others. All the nursing assistants live outside the Center within the local community and are able to support themselves. The staff at the Center works in close collaboration with the Rayong district and provincial hospitals. The goal is to upgrade the level and quality of medical service given to the PLWHA. Our challenge is to accompany the people living with HIV/AIDS on their journey, particularly during the last days of their life, to ensure them a “meaningful” quality of life and a “gentle” death.

Fifty beds are provided for people living with HIV/AIDS that require palliative care. In palliative care department, the aim is to minimize the impact of the progressing illness so that the patients can live life to the fullest and maintain their dignity. When the PCU opened in 1996 death is neither hastened nor postponed; life is affirmed and dying is regarded as a normal process. However since 2004 Anti Retro Viral (ARV’s) drugs have been available through the Thai Social Welfare Department for Thai Citizens. Our challenge is to accompany the people living with HIV/AIDS on their journey, particularly during the last days of their life, to ensure them a “meaningful” quality of life and a “gentle” death.