Families generally reject AIDS-infected member

JAKARTA (JP): AIDS patients need proper care and support from their families to lighten their burden, says Dr. Arman Adikusomo, a psychiatrist who treats the AIDS-infected.

Dr. Adikusumo, from the AIDS Study Group at the University of Indonesia's Medical School, told a symposium Saturday that not all people would accept a member of their family who had AIDS, especially if the patient was homosexual.

"There was a mother who could not say: 'Son, I love you' until he died," Adikusumo said.

He said one of his AIDS patients, secluded by his family, was alone when he passed away. He was one of Adikusumo's two patients who have died.

People infected by HIV (Human Immuno-deficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS, are in bad need of support from friends and families to share their grief and suffering, especially since a cure for the disease is still a dream, he said.

According to government statistics, as of Oct. 30, there were 258 people from 15 provinces in Indonesia that had tested HIV positive.

Jakarta tops the list with 87 people, of which 37 have full- blown AIDS, according to Zubairi Djoerban, moderator of the symposium.

Irian Jaya is second with 64 HIV carriers, including two who have full-blown AIDS. In Bali, 11 people are suffering from AIDS while 20 others are carriers of the virus. Five people in East Java have come down with AIDS and 19 others are known to have the HIV virus.

Saturday's symposium was held in conjunction with the World AIDS Day, which falls on Dec.1, and the 75th anniversary of Cipto Mangunkusumo Public Hospital (RSCM).

Other speakers were H. Soemarsono and Fatma Asyari from RSCM and Achmad Juwono from Dr. Soetomo Public Hospital in Surabaya.

Soemarsono said that the first person in Jakarta infected by HIV was detected in 1985 when the man, a worker, had his health checked at RSCM before leaving for Saudi Arabia. In the same year, the first AIDS case in Jakarta was found in a Dutch man. He said that as of Oct. 31, the hospital had treated 42 AIDS- infected people, of whom five were women.

Education

Among the patients were a parking attendant, a cleaning service person and a steward. Their education ranged from elementary to university levels, he said.

Twenty four of them had died.

Soemarsono said that 38 of them got the virus from sexual contact. The rest, including a child, were infected by the virus through blood transfusions and one from intravenous drug use.

Juwono said that since 1989, Dr. Soetomo's hospital had treated three patients who had full-blown AIDS and seven others with HIV.

Out of the seven HIV carriers who had received medical treatment at Dr. Soetomo hospital, six were prostitutes and one was a cross-dresser, Juwono said, most of whom have now returned to their villages.

One of them delivered a baby in Malang last month while another in Bojonegoro, East Java is expecting a child.

Juwono said that in the first months after they were tested HIV positive, the sex workers returned to Dr. Soetomo's hospital for medical check-ups and counseling.

"But they later stopped coming because they did not have enough money," Juwono said. "Two of them have disappeared."

"I am not sure whether it is worth spending so much time and money to monitor them all the time. It is impossible," Juwono said.(sim)