AIDS in Norway: a post hoc evaluation of an AIDS home care project

Norway's National Health Care system guarantees all citizens a right to health care within a decentralized system based on values like solidarity and equality. Seventy-five per cent of people with HIV/AIDS live and are treated in Oslo, the capital. Local home care agencies have minimal, if any experience working with AIDS patients residing in the community. Therefore a home care team with two nurses employed by the hospital was established as a 2-year trial project to establish a home care system for AIDS patients. In March 1993 a post hoc evaluation of the project for AIDS patients was completed, based on descriptive data. Results seem to indicate that a prerequisite for patients to live at home is someone to do chores like cleaning, laundry and shopping. The home care nurses functioned as vital links between the hospital, the outpatient clinic and the local home agency.