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Help Ensure AIDS Rescue Together in Thailand (HEARTT)
1,575 Patients with HIV-AIDS seen/helped until September 20, 2007

HEARTT 2000 and Dr. Philippe Seur

Dr. Philippe Seur is well known in Pattaya for his campaign against AIDS. He works as a volunteer, with the help of donations, mainly from PGF (Pattaya Gay Festival), Pattaya gay businesses and private persons.

A student of the famous École Saint Cyr near Versailles in France, Dr. Seur served his internship in the hospitals of Paris, including the children’s hospital and emergency clinic of the University of Necker. Later, he worked in Saint Malo, Brittany, Annecy and Chamonix in the French Alps, where, he was also a member of the mountain rescue team.

Twenty five years ago, he moved to Zambia, Africa, to serve the humanitarian medical volunteers, Médicins du Monde.
After his stay in Africa, Dr. Philippe joined the French navy.

From 1981 to 1995 Dr. Seur worked in Saudi Arabia for a construction company which employed more than 40’000 people building conference centres and palaces for Saudi Arabian royalty. Working with a team of nurses, he treated 100 - 200 patients per day.

In Saudi Arabia Dr. Philippe learnt Thai from the many Thai workers among his patients.
In 1996, living from his Saudi Arabian savings, Dr. Seur began his fight against AIDS in Thailand. Initially, there was no government assistance program for HIV patients, and Dr. Seur had to rely 100% on sponsors from his network of NGOs, hospitals, concerned doctors, former patients, friends and admirers in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, USA, and Australia for the Anti-Retro-Viral (ARV) drugs necessary. Today, the Thai government’s 30 Baht scheme and the ARV access medical program reduce the financial problem somewhat during the last three years, but it is still woefully inadequate, because just one component of the triple therapy, Kaletra, costs 12,600 Baht per month per patient!

When the Pattaya gay community, businesses and private persons, Thai and Farang, became aware of Dr. Seur’s work, they started to contribute.
The Pattaya Gay Festival, for example, has donated almost 18 million Baht to Dr Philippe Seur’s HEARTT 2000 over the past 6 years.

Because of his fight against AIDS, Dr. Philippe had to struggle with social stigma, ongoing discrimination (even from his own family), ignorance, nonchalance and glibness. His work has been documented on film and in magazines like "Paris Match".

Dr. Philippe emphasises that prevention is still the best policy. Responsible condom use remains the best prophylactic measure. If a condom breaks, he recommends a Post-Exposure Prophylaxis, PEP treatment, to be taken within 3 days, and a 4 week course of ARV treatment to reduce the risk of transmission of infection.
Dr Philippe strongly advises those who believe they may be at risk due to a broken condom accident to go for a blood check and follow it up with the PEP treatment, which minimizes the chance of becoming infected.

Due to the scarceness of funds, Dr. Philippe is stressed. He says he’d leave Thailand if it weren’t for AIDS. But as long as there is a chance of saving one life, he’ll continue, despite his tiredness.

He desperately needs contributions to continue.
Any amount is welcome. Please give generously!