Stock photo used for representational purposes only
When an entire building or neighbourhood rises up against an HIV infected individual, it is rather unfortunate, but not surprising. People still haven’t gotten over the HIV/AIDS stigma. But when trained medical personnel behave in this manner, it is nothing short of an outrage.
A thirty-year-old woman in UP was subjected to terrible discrimination by a hospital when she got admitted there for delivery of a baby because of her HIV status.
When Meena (name changed) got admitted to state-run Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College in the city on June 19 for a Caesarean delivery, the doctors pasted a big piece of paper on her bed that screamed ‘Bio Hazard +ve’, complete with the red AIDS ribbon drawn on it to announce that here was one battling the deadly virus, says a news report carried by the Times of India. To add insult to injury, she was also made to clean her own medical waste after the stitches were cut three days later.
Not stopping at that, a senior doctor also allegedly abused Meena for “bringing another diseased child into the world.” Because of the handwritten pamphlet, all her relatives and friends who visited her at the hospital have now come to know of her HIV positive status, adding to the woman’s extreme anxiety.
Talking to TOI from her bed, Meena said that she had contracted the disease from her husband eight years ago and had kept it a closely guarded secret. “Due to the negligence of the doctors, it has now become public knowledge,” she wept.
What the hospital did goes beyond outrage, it is actually illegal. Hospitals and other allied institutions of healthcare, cannot disclose a patient’s HIV status and this is a rule not only upheld by the Supreme Court, it is also adhered to as part of medical ethics under the Medical Council Act.
Despite these rules and despite an almost three-decade old HIV intervention program conducted by the government that also included awareness programs for all, hospitals still continue to give HIV infected patients a raw deal. While government hospitals can’t actually turn patients away, many of them often treat patients in a less than humane manner.
Private hospitals are a tad more polite, except many of them don’t even admit the patients. HIV patients are often turned away citing excuses like unavailability of beds or surgery slots.
The situation is slightly better in major cities, where most of the big hospitals do admit HIV patients, but this is not widely publicised, says a TOI Coimbatore report from March 2014. “We have a separate wing to treat HIV patients, conduct surgeries and even do deliveries. We do not publicise it much because we do not want our general patients to live in fear of a transfusion mistake or infection,” a doctor at one of the hospitals that treat HIV patients told TOI. “We do not want doctors to lose out on their normal patients,” he added.
In some states, their State Aids Control Societies hold special sensitisation programs for large private hospitals in treating HIV patients, in addition to the training that they already conduct at government hospitals. After a similar program was conducted by the Tamil Nadu counterpart in Coimbatore, three large hospitals agreed to provide treatment for HIV patients, reported TOI, but at twice the usual cost of treatment.
“They claim they have to purchase disposable instruments and gear such as gloves, masks and costumes, which they have to dispose after one use and hence the higher charge,” said M Somesh, president of Coimbatore Positive Network.”But we are glad that they at least treat us, so we have learned to bear the costs.”
So yes, change is happening, but the pace is slow. Southern states and Maharashtra are a step ahead of others in providing effective medicare. In 2003, V H S Hospital in Chennai, set up India’s first Intensive Care Unit (ICU) exclusively for HIV patients, says a report by The Hindu. The two-bed unit was set up by the Y R G Centre for AIDS Research and Education in response to a tragic death that took place on April 19, 2002. Ashok Pillai, the president of the Indian Network of Positive Persons, died as a result of being denied ventilator support due to his HIV status.
But one is yet to hear of other hospitals following suit since then.
Image Courtesy: Reuters
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