AIDS victims – our forgotten people

THE National Research Institute intends to carry out HIV and AIDS behavioural surveillance between this year and 2010.
The Health Secretary has indicated that the research will be aimed at capturing an image of people’s behaviour and the way they think and respond to the two aspects of the disease.

Such research, as Dr Malau has stated, is vital to allow the Health Department and indeed the whole health sector to make decisions that are informed by hard evidence.
We commend and support all such dedicated research that seeks to address medical and social issues within our community.

A further report in The National yesterday told of another thinly veiled plea from the director of the Friends Foundation who again drew attention to the plight of those infected with HIV and AIDS.
As regular readers of our editorials will know, this has been a growing concern of The National for many years.
We would be foolish to deny the huge international and national efforts that have been made to conduct awareness campaigns in our country.
Tens of millions of kina have been lavished on these campaigns.

Today, we see a bewildering number of well-meaning groups committed to making people realise the grim future they will face unless the growth of infection is halted.

It is virtually impossible to determine how much effect this is having on slowing the spread of the disease.
Scientists and health specialists, economists and medical anthropologists, researchers in sexual behaviour and a host of other medial and behavioural experts have landed on our shores, tried to come to grips with the PNG situation and ultimately departed.
The products of their stay have proven to be limited and in many cases, not particularly helpful.

Parallels between the spread of HIV and AIDS in our country and in Africa may establish some statistical bases against which our experience can be measured.

But the differences between the African and PNG experience are considerable and even daunting.

And so while we applaud the unveiling of yet another research effort and while we recognise the potential for that plan to contribute meaningful results, we remain deeply concerned over the fate of the HIV positive and the AIDS victims in our society.

Tessie Soi is a realist.

She speaks of tiny children buried in donated coffins in mass graves and of the plight of orphans whose parents have both succumbed to AIDS.
She states what should be blindingly obvious – the number of bedridden HIV and AIDS patients at Port Moresby General Hospital continues to rise.
And in turn, we continue to ask the same questions and they continue to attract no official answer and little apparent concern on the part of the community.

Where are the dedicated wards for these patients in PNG public hospitals?
How many PNG doctors have an in-depth knowledge of the medical, physical and mental requirements of these patients?
How many fully trained nurses with a real concern for these patients are working in PNG hospitals?

How many hospitals do their best to deter the relatives of AIDS patients from bringing the seriously ill and dying for admission because there are no ways of handling their special needs?

Where are the trained social workers who can help relatives to understand what these victims need when they are at home?
How many committed home nurses are there who can visit HIV and AIDS patients each day and monitor their condition and the relationships they have with their families and friends?

Tessie Soi makes it clear that many relatives shun the handful of victims who are bed-ridden in hospital.

How much worse is their situation when they are hidden as shameful objects in villages and are eventually unable to even attend to their most basic daily needs, such as toileting, washing themselves, even drinking and trying to eat?

We support Tessie Soi and we again urge the nation to fight to provide adequate facilities for the sufferers of this disease.
For despite all the glossy awareness campaigns and the assurances that HIV and AIDS are 100% avoidable, the disease once contracted remains 100% fatal.

We plead for the victims of this scourge.