Little help for foreign AIDS patients

Little help for foreign AIDS patients

By Yvonne Chang

TOKYO (Reuters): Prapaporn Yoskorn, a registered nurse from Thailand, has become a celebrity among Thai prostitutes working in Japan.

Prapaporn returned to Thailand recently after seven months in Japan offering advice on AIDS treatment to Thai women in the sex industry.

"Not many came to me in the beginning, but word about me spread and more and more women began calling me for help about AIDS," said Prapaporn, who also speaks fluent Japanese, before departing.

There are no official statistics on how many foreign prostitutes work in Japan, but in a sign their numbers are growing, 32 foreign women working in "bars" asked police for help in 1997 compared with nine the previous year.

Apart from telephone consultations, Prapaporn visited hospitals all over Japan to interpret for Thai patients and negotiated with authorities if a patient wanted to go home.

She said of her hectic 122 days in Japan: "It was good that they at least sought help. When people hide their illness or don't know they have AIDS, that's when the disease spreads."

Two years have passed since a landmark settlement, in which the government agreed to pay compensation to hemophiliacs who contracted HIV through tainted blood products, highlighted the plight of AIDS patients in Japan.

Japan continues to see an increase in the number of acquired immune deficiency syndrome patients and carriers of the human immunodeficiency virus that leads to AIDS, despite other nations starting to show a decline.

According to Japan's Health Ministry, the number of new AIDS and HIV-positive patients, excluding the haemophiliacs with the disease, hit a record high of 647 in 1997.

Since the ministry started the survey in 1984, it recorded 3,985 HIV carriers and 1684 AIDS cases in Japan. The AIDS Surveillance Committee said in its recent report the increases were found mainly among male Japanese and female foreigners.

Experts say the most worrisome cases are foreigners without proper visas working in Japanese factories and bars.

"They are the ones who need the most help, and those who carry the greatest risk of spreading the disease, but there is a limit to what we can do," said Mika Ishihara, chief coordinator at the AIDS Clinical Center in Tokyo.

These people refuse to seek treatment until it is too late because they fear being turned over to authorities and because they do not belong to an insurance scheme and cannot afford the costly AIDS medication.

"I can only tell them to lead a healthy life: to eat well, sleep well, avoid alcohol and cigarettes...all things difficult for women working in bars to do," Prapaporn said.

While correct information on AIDS is instrumental in fighting the disease, doctors say such patients' knowledge of AIDS is limited to what they learn by word of mouth.

Such limited knowledge sometimes forces AIDS victims to hide from their friends and loved ones, quit work and can even drive them to suicide, experts said.

Foreigners also tend to suffer more from psychological depression either because they are alone in Japan and have no one to turn to or they belong to a small, close-knit foreign community where they fear their illness would be known to all.

Prapaporn said she tries to persuade these people to return home, but many do not have the money to do so or fear being a burden on or a source of shame for their families.

Also deeply involved in the fight against AIDS in Japan is Teruko Enomoto, who runs a support group for foreign women, organizes fund-raising projects for them and mediates on their behalf with medical institutions and the authorities.

Enomoto said she was frustrated because hospitals and the authorities were not taking advantage of support groups like hers to help foreigners with AIDS.

She also criticized the lack of information for the public on AIDS treatment in contrast to the flood of information and discussion on AIDS prevention.

"But the biggest dilemma is that we can only provide temporary relief and not offer fundamental solutions to their problems," said Enomoto.