- WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
Miriam Maluwa (left), senior adviser, law and human rights Caribbean UNAIDS, embraces John Junor, then Minister of Health, at the launch of the National HIV/AIDS Policy, at the Pegasus hotel, New Kingston in May, last year.
Andrea Downer, Freelance Writer
JAMAICA'S SUCCESS in controlling HIV/AIDS and meeting the commitments made at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS in 2001 is being marred by persistent stigma and discrimination which abound in all sectors, including health.
"Because of fear of being labelled, and of the negative repercussions if their HIV-positive status becomes known, people are not getting tested and they are not seeking treatment," Lilieth, a member of the Jamaica Network of Seropositives tells The Sunday Gleaner.
GREATEST INHIBITING FACTOR
Lilieth was diagnosed HIV-positive 12 years ago and cites stigma and discrimination as the greatest inhibiting factors to the successful implementation of the UNGASS commitments.
"This denial by the PLWHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS) drives the epidemic underground and means that the programmes by the Ministry of Health and other agencies that are geared towards PLWHAs are not reaching the targeted population," she explained.
Lilieth said that sometimes, even people who know their status are in denial and will even refuse to disclose their status to health care providers when they go to seek treatment for opportunistic infections. She said this withholding of information stems from the fear that disclosure of their HIV status will impact on the level of treatment that they receive.
"The fear is valid," she said, as she has witnessed instances at one urban hospital where health care workers refused to, or took hours to treat a PLWHA who was critically ill, after the PLWHA disclosed her status.
She said the young woman had undergone minor surgery and had been sent home, when a complication developed.
"She began bleeding profusely and we rushed her to the hospital. They were in the process of attending to her when she informed them that she was HIV-positive. She was told to wait a little until a doctor was located. It was several hours before she was attended to."
REFUSED MEDICATION
Lilieth recounted another instance in which an HIV-positive man was admitted for 17 days at the same public hospital, and health care personnel refused to attend to him for the duration of his stay. He was eventually sent home without even receiving medication.
In a third case at the same hospital, a woman who was HIV-positive and too ill to leave her bed, was not given assistance to procure medication from the hospital's pharmacy, which was on a different floor of the hospital. She was not able to enlist the help of her family members, as she had not told them of her HIV status, out of fear that they would reject her. The PLWHA was only able to get the medication after several days when another PLWHA came to her assistance.
All three incidents occurred within a three-month period, during the first quarter of 2006.
Miriam Maluwa, UNAIDS representative in Jamaica, said stigma and discrimination, which are part of a wider societal problem, are the greatest threat to the achievement of the UNGASS goals.
"As long as stigma and discrimination exist, we will never achieve universal access," Ms. Maluwa said with strong conviction.
Her views are shared by former Health Minister John Junor who cited stigma and discrimination as Jamaica's greatest challenge in fulfilling the UNGASS commitments. He also said homophobia is a major part of the problem.
Name changed to protect identity
The article above is part of a five country series on the Caribbean's HIV/AIDS response since individual governments signed the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS Declaration of Commitment in 2001. It is now five years since those promises were made and time to assess the progress made. This is a collaborative effort between Panos Caribbean and The Gleaner.
