Re: T.N. doctors shun AIDS patients

[Guest guest]

Hello

I am a delhi-based journalist with a special interest in health issues. One of

the issues which trouble me a great deal is the paradox of extreme

stigmatisation of HIV positive people in states where there is relatively

speaking a great deal of awareness about the disease.As we have seen from the

examples of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, increased awareness doesnot translate into

greater empathy for the positive people. Do colleagues and friends agree with

this, and if so, where do you think we are going wrong in our awareness drive?

Sincerely

Patralekha Chatterjee

E-mail: <patralekha_chatterjee@...>

[Guest guest]

Hello,

Awareness is the first step towards behaviour change. The awareness

campaigns make people realise about ways on how HIV gets transmitted and

how one can keep away from infection. ( safe sex, condoms, safe Blood etc).

From recent times, we have had some form of awareness about leading a

healthy life even after infection ( mostly by pharmaceautical companies)

This is intent to bring about behaviour change by promoting positive

living and also family and community members to accept people with the

infection. This second generation of behaviour change campaigns are yet to

produce results.

One does not see much fault generally in such a strategy, though one would

like to see some form of integration between the two campaigns. However,

in the scheme of things behaviour change of medical professionals were

taken for granted. We are supposed not to show any kind of fear or

discrimination while handling any kind of patients for that matter. We are

supposed to protect ourselves from all possible infections during our

professional work.

Maybe similar kind of awareness campaigns for a behaviour change are

necessary for not only doctors and other paramedics at the front line of

patient care, but also people who are in charge of medical education at

colleges, Health and hospital administrators, MCI and of course our

professional bodies like the IMA, ASI, API etc. On a more positive front we

are seeing growing number of doctors attending to HIV/AIDs cases. It would

be interesting to analyse the reasons as to why only these doctors have

been motivated and not others.

Dr. S. N. Misra

E-mail: <misranaco@...>