Advocates: laws must help fight AIDS/HIV bias
- Source: Global Times
- [00:45 July 23 2010]
- Comments
An orphan boy, who is healthy, is spending time at a summer camp in Beijing created for children whose parents died from AIDS. Family members of HIV/AIDS patients say they also feel discrimination. Photo: CFP
By Zhu Shanshan
Xinzi, an HIV carrier, was optimistic after she was told that a new type of treatment could prevent her unborn baby from getting HIV.
However the good news did not last.
Her hopes were shattered after Xinzi (not real name) told a doctor at Kunming Maternal and Child Care Service Center that she wanted to have medication to help reduce the chance of her baby being born with HIV.
"When I told the doctor I was an HIV carrier, he jumped up and yelled at me, told me to leave the room like I was a monster. I was pregnant and I was sick. Where was I supposed to go?" Xinzi told the Global Times recently.
The hospital refused to help her or to deliver her baby unless Xinzi paid for new surgical equipment. The hospital felt once they treat an HIV person, the equipment would be contaminated.
The woman turned to the Provincial Maternal and Child Care Hospital, where she received the surgery.
"HIV patients are ordinary people. We don't threaten anyone. We deserve equal rights like any other people," said Xinzi, who dedicated herself to helping fellow HIV mothers and now works for Yunnan University Legal Aid Center, a renowned agency in that HIV or AIDS patients.
Social workers like Xinzi are lobbying for equal rights for people living with AIDS across the country, which stood at 740,000 at the end of 2009, according to UNAIDS.
The push for equal rights at work places, educational institutions and at healthcare facilities got public attention when the world's top HIV/AIDS experts met in Vienna, Austria for the wee-long 18th International AIDS Conference, which ends today.
Although legislation that outlawed discrimination against HIV carriers and AIDS patients has been in place since 2004, sufferers are barely protected due to poor enforcement, said Xia Donghua, project manager of Marie Stopes International China (MSIC), a non-governmental organization (NGO) that focuses on AIDS issues.
