Re: Discrimination in Dental Care settings in Guwahati Medical College Hospital

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

I am not surprised. In my state i can narrate plenty of stories told to me by

HIV positive people. Medical freternity on the whole,medical colleges in

particular are insensitive majority of times and on record or off

record(majority of times)HIv ppl are refused surgeries. I recall the principal

of the medical college (the correct diagnosis is another story) refused to

operate the patient after he came to know his HIV status, although he was

admitted by himself. Not only that despite having a VTCT there his tests were

asked to be done from outside.

I had to arrange cholecystectomy of a HIV poitive lady from a small neighbouring

town from where mostly people are reffered to GMC, Amritsar,only because the

surgeons in medical college refused point blank An HIV positive person with

suicidal poising was saved bt then refused surgery for GI strictures by prof of

surgery and was refd to PGIMER,Chandigarh.

Refusal to conduct deliveries and reffering to them to PGI is common on the

pretext that Govt colleges do not have facilities to do such things.

A contrast was also seen when an ortho surgeon Of GMC,Amritsar started geting

publicity by opertaing HIV positive ppl,he was evn honored by the govt.

The sories are, many. The fact is we do discriminate. Why ? the doctors should

do some soul searching

Dr.Rakesh Bharti

BDC Research Center,27-D,Sant Avenue,Amritsar

E-mail:<rakeshbharti1@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear Jahnabi,

What is your SACS doing ?? I suppose they have records of so many trainings

being done for this great section of service providers (or is it only in

papers!!).

If I'm not wrong the PD who seems to be very supportive of you is the one who in

a recent NE Television interview said that HIV+ children should not be allowed

to mix with other uninfected children

(which ultimately strengthen the case of a school throwing out a kid after all

admission procedure were completed in your state ASSAM)!!

But unfortunately we have not being hearing anything from the network as such on

this count!! I requested NE TV for a copy of the interview but never to be

responded!!

We need to do much more and can't simply wait for the slow moving system where

only those who are probably waiting for retirement for running the show!!

In solidarity,

" Anand Singh "

E-mail: <chanand43@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear Jehnabi,

Greetings to you.I will first of all like to congratulate you for coming out so

couragiosly and showing a light to so many PLHAS who are in the depth of

darkness of unnecessory guilt and contept. We want many such Jehnabis to

seriosly and successfully fight against the virus.

It is sad but true that many of us have' become' doctors but we should not have.

There is a total lack of empathy in some of us. Appearance of this new infection

is probably an eye opener to such a rampant inhuman nature of many a medical

professionals. I srongly condemn the behavior of these so called doctors you

have unfortunately approached.

They need to be sensitised and properly guided themselves. They need help.I hope

the Govt. of Assam is listening. Nobody can refuse to give you treatment because

you are HIV positive. All such doctor should take voluntary retirement as there

appears to be the starting of cerebral atrophy in them anyway.

Dr.Divya,

Medical officer, Jyothis terminal care centre,

New Mumbai

E-mail:<d_mithel@...>

[Guest guest]

Another sad incident, yet again ! While on one hand it cannot be denied that

doctors do have a right to decide whether they are going to treat a particular

patient or not ( without , at this moment, trying to categorise whether this is

discrimination or not) , patients have a right to be treated ( irrespective of

caste, creed, colour , religion etc etc etc ) . One question here is - if the

government health system decides to select which patient to treat and which not

to , we have to question the very purpose of a government operated health system

.. That too in a 'welfare' state like India.

Without trying to be judgemental or vindictive, I wish to state that there are 2

sets of things happening, specially among doctors. And they are antipodal at

times. On one hand, there is a scramble to count and declare the number of HIV

positive patients a doctor has treated on various settings . Some of these

doctors have even made presentations in various forums . It will be disastrous

to believe that these doctors offered treatment to PLWHA merely because they

wanted to increase the head count of the number of PLWHA they had come across/

treated ! On the other hand , there are doctors who refuse ( or rather, have

been refusing ) to treat PLWHA on some pretext or the other . And to refuse

treatment ( or extract a tooth ) citing 'universal precautions' is hazardous.

What has been the chances that these doctors who cite 'universal precaution '

for not treating PLWHA have not treated such persons unknowingly ? With the

burgeoning number of HIV positives, it will be difficult to

hazard a conservative guess !

In my earlier mails to this forum, I have been repeatedly putting forth a

question - what has been the impact of the various trainings of doctors carried

out as part of the National AIDS Control Programme ? Has there been any impact

evaluation ? Has there been revision of the training content ? Having been in

this field for a decade and a half now, I am convinced that training of doctors

is a different ball game altogether . This is because of 3 important factors .

(1) A large number of Doctors are yet to be convinced about the reality of HIV/

AIDS (2) Doctors have access to a lot of information on the subject and may not

be interested in spending time and energy attending 'monotonous' trainings and

(3) It is difficult to 'teach' doctors. Having said this, I am also convinced

that doctors are trainable provided the approach and contents are appropriate

and convincing. This is not to say that this can be done overnight !!

It is true that a lot of NGOs, CBOs and Government have done numerous awareness

Generation and Training Programmes for all section of people . PLWHAs have been

doing their bit for quite some time now but the question remains same - have

passionate pleas and presentations by PLWHA individually or as groups been able

to bring about a large change ? Have messages on HIV/ AIDS been consistent ? Or

has there dramatisation and sensationalisation of facts ? May be a lot of

discussions , informally, have taken place on this matter. But it is high time

that not only formal discussions among various stakeholders but also strategies

to tackle this bottle neck has to be evolved - the sooner , the better .

Dr Chiranjeeb Kakoty

NESPYM

" Puspalaya "

Red Cross Road

Khaliamari, Dibrugarh 786 001

E-mail <chkakoty1@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear Jahnabi and the FORUM,

I happened to visit Assam last week. All along the highway, from Gauhati to

Nagaon ( around 86 kms) I could cite just 2 hoardings on HIV/AIDS(ASACS). One

near Jorabat-Khanapara (that too some gentleman must have accumulated the broken

pieces and dumped the same on the uphills) and the other one in Jagiroad PHC.

Rest, was totally blank.

On this note, i request the PD, ASACS, to come and check DSACS activities in

Delhi. Although, it is against ethics and the law ,DSACS has not left any wall

in and around Delhi blank without displaying messages on HIV/AIDS in English and

Hindi. A good inititiative to reach out to the common man. I think sponsoring a

viewers choice award in the new private cable channel NE Television will not

help at all.

It's time we reach out to the masses and in their dialect.

On one occassion, i talked to the driver of a private car which we hired for all

the 5 days that we stayed in Assam about HIV/AIDS after seeing a small 2X2 board

of an NGO claiming to conduct a " Healthy Highway " project on NH 37, but it was

all in vain. My Mother and I explained him all about HIV/AIDS. I really felt

that a lot has to be done Assam.

Your problem with the Doctor comes as no surprise to me. I still remeber well

around 2/3 years back you declared about your status and i told the same to

Naveen, the then president of DNP+. We thought that things would go in the right

direction.

But, i guess it's the sytem with which we are still stuck with and its hard to

remove just like your tooth. But, have heart

Jahnabi.........aami akhomiya, naho dukhiya.

Diganta Kumar Bbordoloi

E-mail: <rainfoundation@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

From the posting of Dr Chiranjeeb Kakoty it is clear that we as Workers in the

field are getting increasingly frustrated with the situation at the ground

level.

We in Mumbai continue to face such situations although on a slightly positive

note there is a 60% improvement. I say slightly positive only because this is a

gradual and slow change over the years which has nothing to do with anything

proactive from NACO or SACS/DACS.

Most probably the high visibility of HIV patients in Mumbai hospitals leave them

no choice.

But with all the money pouring in, surely we should expect something

focussed and planned from the Government to see that discrimination is wiped

out?

Eldred Tellis.

e-MAIL: <sankalpt@...>