with hold cursors or workarounds

Hi,
 I am trying to port an app that currently runs over db2 and oracle (on windows
os/2 linux hpux aix etc) to also run over postgres.
 I am currently porting the windows client (using odbc).
 I am having major problems because of the lack of with hold cursors (cursors
that remain open over a commit) in postgres. There are a lot of places where
the app will - open a cursor with hold - fetch the first 20 or so rows, allow
the user to scroll thru the result set, updating and commiting changes to
particular rows as they go. When the user gets to the end of the current set of
fetched rows - the app will fetch the next 20 or so during a scroll down
operation etc. The user may hold the read-only cursor over the result-set  all
day, and it is important that rows that they do update, be immediately
available for other users.

What do folk do to support this kind of scenario in the abscence of with hold
cursors ?
Is implementation of with hold cursors likely in the near future?

Regards,
Wayne