Health workers contribute discrimination against HIV/AIDS
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.