Doctors urge for better treatment of HIV patients

Doctors urge for better treatment of HIV patients

JAKARTA (JP): Doctors here urged their fellow medical
colleagues to cease discriminatory treatment of patients
identified as being drug addicts or those infected with HIV/AIDS
virus.

Doctors during a symposium here on Wednesday lamented that
many addicts or patients with the Human Immuno-deficiency
Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) were often
being treated as second-class patients, with medical
practitioners often reluctant to treat these stigmatized patients
or just simply turning them away.

They pointed out that the reception given to patients facing
these "maladies" was often different to that given to those with
a simple toothache.

Immunologist Samsuridjal Djauzi who practices at state-run
Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital said medical practitioners must learn
to adjust to the challenges they face.

"Doctors are not supposed to stop learning ... Their skills
should progress in line with the problems found in society," he
said.

Samsuridjal later told journalists that many of his colleagues
even believed that these patients "deserved" their fate as a
consequence of their chosen lifestyle, while adding that "some
were afraid of the risk of being infected with HIV/AIDS."

Physician Zubairi Djoerban, who was a speaker in the symposium
held by the Jakarta-chapter of the Indonesian Internists
Association (PAPDI-JAYA), said that awareness about handling such
cases should be introduced in the curriculum for medical
students.

Speakers in the symposium revealed there were clear signs that
the number of intravenous drug users was rising, many of whom
swap unsterile syringes thereby exposing themselves to
transmutable Hepatitis C virus and HIV.

Internist Nurul Akbar revealed that a study in 1999 showed
that 83 percent of 185 patients in two drug rehabilitation
programs here were intravenous drugs users, with two out of every
three infected with Hepatitis C.

Samsuridjal added that 78 percent of his HIV patients were
drug users who became infected through shared syringes.

The doctors agreed that the most effective way to curb the
spread of such infectious diseases in the short term was by
teaching drug users to use sterile syringes or by distributing
sterile ones.

Samsuridjal also urged the government to provide hospitals or
even health centers in remote area with medicines and first aid
to help drug addicts that suffered from a drug overdose, their
number one killer.(bby)