|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 7 December 2003 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
The burden of stigma by Carol Aloysius Summer 1998. A man believed to be HIV positive and rumoured to be attempting to inject people with HIV infected blood, is being burned alive in broad daylight by an angry mob. To the Indians living with HIV/AIDS this reaction was a sobering reminder of their extreme isolation and vulnerability. Following the attack, The Family Health International in its issue on `Impact on HIV' quotes a shocked Ashok Pillai, president of the Indian Network of People Living with HIV (INP) as saying, "Although stigmatisation and differential treatment were not new to us, the sheer brutal physicality of this episode suddenly made us realise how oppressive our environment is - and how fragile our existence". True facts The Family Health International quotes a former project co-ordinator of INP as saying, "When we visited the neighbourhood immediately afterwards and told the true facts about AIDS and that we were HIV positive too that they became extremely receptive and hospitable". In another such incident the Family Health International describes how in 1999, a well-known corporate hospital in Chennai had informed the future bride of a patient, that her fiance had tested positive for HIV. The couple's wedding was aborted and the man 's HIV status became a mater of public knowledge and discussion. The patient, himself a doctor, tried to sue the hospital for breach of confidentiality and the case was eventually referred to India's Supreme Court. In a ruling to the government of India and medical institutions nationwide, the Supreme Court suspended the right of HIV positive people to marry on the grounds that in questions of individual rights versus public safety, the law would always favour public good. The Supreme Court also exempted doctors from maintaining patients' confidentiality for HIV positive people in order "to save innocent lives that may be endangered". Closer home in a remote hamlet in Rambukkana, Sri Lanka, a family of four children and their mother were forced out of their home and compelled to move to another village when their neighbours discovered that the father had died of AIDS. "It was only after we conducted an awareness program through our peripheral clinics that the family was able to move back", Dr. Shantha Hettiarachchi, Medical officer , National Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS control (NASCP) Program told the media at a recent seminar held at the health Education Bureau. Stigma and discrimination deny people living with HIV/AIDS the treatment, care and support they need. They also contribute to rising infection rates. The `Red Cross, Red Crescent' magazine recently highlighted the toll such prejudice. In a revealing article titled 'The burden of stigma'. It states, few people with HIV/AIDS escape the stigma and discrimination that often comes with the disease. When those who are infected live on the fringe of society, their misfortune is perceived by many people as a punishment for errant lifestyles that makes them drug addicts, become sex workers and cause men to have sex with men, thus bringing the virus on themselves. Stigma and discrimination against HIV/AIDS patients can not only have negative results on the victims but on society as a whole since it is the stigma attached to the disease that drives these patients underground.. Denying they have HIV/AIDS can only increase the chances of spreading the virus. Solution What then is the solution? Tolerance and acceptance, says a social worker. "Today there are over 8,500 carriers of HIV in Sri Lanka. If the majority of them do not seek treatment because of fears of stigma and discrimination we can have an AIDS epidemic as in most other countries. Patients need to be identified and treated. It is only by changing our attitudes we can help them and ourselves as well." Which is why last year's theme of live and let live on World AIDS Day, is being repeated this year as well, underlining the importance of creating awareness of the negative outcomes of HIV/AIDS related stigma and discrimination. Eminent global leaders have joined in this battle as well. Former South African President Nelson Mandela voiced his sentiments on the subject in no uncertain terms when he said," AIDS is a war against humanity. We need to break the silence, banish the stigma and discrimination ... within the struggle against AIDS. If we discard the people living with HIV/AIDS we can no longer call ourselves human". But in spite of these collective efforts at both global level (the UN Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS put stigma and discrimination at the top of the agenda, while UNAIDS took up the call for action and is leading a global campaign `Live and Let Live') stigma and discrimination against AIDS victims remains both covertly and overtly. "The real tragedy about AIDS", says a local social worker who is involved in an NGO working with AIDs patients, is that not even the closest friends let alone the family members of the victims want to accept them once they have learned the truth. They are treated as social outcasts or pariahs. "My family ignores me, and my friends don't recognise me any more" is the frequent cry of an HIV patient. Which is why, says a health ministry official, so many of our patients who we have identified as HIV positive simply disappear and go into hiding and don't return to our clinics thereafter. They constitute a real health hazard to the rest of the community as they could transmit the disease to others." At least one country has found an interesting solution to the problem. The Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS), a tertiary medical centre located at Tirupathi a major pilgrimage centre in India, screens has found that an increasing number of patients visiting its emergency Outpatients Department were persons who suspected they had HIV but were posing off as pilgrims to escape being seen by friends and family members if they were screened in clinics in their own villages. Many of these patients were apparently asymptomatic individuals (usually not from Tirupathi) while presenting themselves for "Whole body check-ups" who also request for HIV testing along with other tests. After some initial probing doctors at the clinic were able to find out that many of them suspected they maybe HIV infected, the suspicion arising after gaining information on AIDS from various sources, and had come all the way from far off villages under the guise of going on a pilgrimage, to get themselves tested at this particular centre. "Apart from ensuring confidentiality, it also avoids the problem of being ostracised from their own neighbourhoods," AIDS WATCH a newsletter from WHO for South East Asia states. The impact People living with HIV/AIDS bear the consequences and face the impact of stigma and discrimination throughout their lives. This is why the WHO which has worked out ten strategies to overcoming stigma against HIV/AIDS is currently encouraging infected persons to speak out their minds, their fears and share the burden of stigma with others, in the hope that such a sharing of experiences will allow for community understanding and will `humanise' the disease causing people to change their attitudes towards HIV/AIDS infected people. Debunking myths and misconceptions about the disease is another strategy of intervention. As the WHO states, "Ignorance of the facts leads to fear which in turn adds to stigma and discrimination". Others include: Documenting all acts of stigma and discrimination: reviewing reform of laws, legislation and regulations, promoting non-discriminatory laws and drawing up codes of conduct for professional bodies with regard to HIV/AIDS patients. The workplace is another environment where stigma and discrimination occur. In this respect the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work provides guidance to different actors in the world of work and outlines options for them to choose from and adapt those relevant to their needs. Only time can say whether this concerted effort on the part of our policy makers, law makers, employers and society as a whole can bring about a change of attitude towards HIV/AIDS infected persons. And only then can the terrible burden of stigma and discrimination that now condemns them to living on the outskirts of society, be removed from the fragile shoulders of all HIV/AIDS sufferers throughout the world. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
