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When a patient is absent from an appointment or spends more time than expected without coming to collect their ARV drugs, health mediators or psychosocial counselors are alerted so that they can find out the reason for this absence. This is the daily routine of SYM's medical staff, who make every effort to ensure that all beneficiaries follow ARV treatment regularly.

On September 01, 2021, a medical team from SYM headed to Ruyaga, more than 20 kilometers from SYM headquarters. Since the vehicle could not reach the patient's home because the road was impassable, the medical team was forced to take a small path, walking under the blazing sun for about thirty minutes.

According to Dr. Emmanuel, who is in charge of RAFG Activity project at SYM, Service Yezu Mwiza was alerted by a community intermediary to the deteriorating health of one of its beneficiaries and sent a team to go and find out why the beneficiary was in such condition.

“We found that his mental health was impaired, leading to non-adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Poor adherence to ART leads to a reduction in quality of life and major medical and psychosocial complications. As therapeutic education is possible in a person in good mental health, essential arrangements have been made with the beneficiary's family to alleviate this problem ”, he says.
SYM team on a psychosocial visit to Ruyaga Isaac Nkurikiye, psychosocial counselor at SYM adds that the community relays have a crucial role in finding those who are lost or late for appointments "without their help we would never know where the beneficiaries live, they are also our eyes in their community and alert us if something is not going well for one or the other beneficiary before the situation gets worse”.

The community relays are happy that their gesture saves lives "being a community relay in our locality is really hard. As it is a mountainous region, we climb mountains to reach the homes of the beneficiaries, but this does not discourage us, on contrary, we rejoice because our contribution, no matter how small, allows us to save lives; this is what motivates us each time we are carrying out this noble mission", testifies Mrs. Scholastique, community relay.