Health workers contribute discrimination against HIV/AIDS

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite massive media campaigns, people living with HIV/AIDS continue to receive discriminative treatment from hospitals and health workers, according to activists.

Discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS ranges from the refusal by hospitals and health workers to provide health care, postponement of medical treatment, additional fees for the use of health facilities and the revealing of blood test results.

"Such discrimination threatens the freedom and privacy of people living with HIV/AIDS. They cannot get appropriate treatment, not to mention express their feelings," Tuti Parwati Merati of Udayana University in Bali said during a seminar in the capital earlier this week.

Most of the speakers and participants of the seminar were HIV/AIDS activists and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS also comes from their families and people in their neighborhoods who receive incorrect information from health workers, according to a survey conducted last year by the Spiritia Foundation, in cooperation with UNAIDS, AusAID and the Ford Foundation.

The survey involved 42 HIV-positive interviewees and five HIV- positive interviewers in 10 provinces: Jakarta, West Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, Bali, West Sumatra, Riau, South Sulawesi, Papua and East Nusa Tenggara.

A case study attached to the survey results described how one family isolated a young HIV-positive daughter at home for three months based on a doctor's recommendation.

Tuti noted that some HIV-positive people received different treatment from friends and were excluded from family occasions.

Others were discriminated against in their workplaces. They lost their jobs, had their duties changed and received pay cuts after the employers learned they were HIV positive.

The survey also showed that several respondents received verbal abuse while in public and were forced to reveal their HIV status when dealing with the immigration office.

Tuti, an internist who identified the first person with AIDS in Indonesia in 1987, said some HIV-positive people were forced to take blood tests by health workers against their will.

"Most of them never receive an explanation about the test. Worst of all, the test results are sometimes disclosed by the health workers in front of other people," she said.

Broto Warsisto, chairman of the Committee on Drug Abuse Control at the Ministry of Health, said that theoretically health workers were not allowed to discriminate against anyone. However, he conceded, in practice discrimination did occur.

According to the ministry's records, there were 2,147 HIV- positive people and 957 people living with AIDS in Indonesia as of September of this year.

He underlined the need for regulations to prevent discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS.

"People living with HIV/AIDS and activists should put political pressure on decision makers and professional associations so they will produce policies that are not discriminative against these people," Broto said.