social stigma attached to AIDSA

A. People’s ignorance and lack of the right sort of education makes it very difficult to get across any important message. Let me tell you about one instance. We had a patient who had contracted HIV from a kidney transplant that he had in the 1990s in Chennai. We wanted to trace the source of the donated kidney and people said, “He got it from Kidneyvakkam. Oh you don’t know Kidneyvakkam? It is actually Villivakkam, but most people there have only one kidney because they have sold it for money.” We visited the place and true enough people there were very willing to sell a kidney. One old lady approached me and said, “I have already sold one kidney. Please take my other kidney too; my son says he has some debts to re-pay.” This means the donor was probably not thoroughly evaluated by the doctor before undertaking the transplant. So the ignorance also extends sometimes within the medical community too.

Another challenge to overcome or diffuse is the social stigma attached to AIDS. There was a flight lieutenant in his 50’s who approached our Centre to be tested for HIV. He was so nervous when he came to get his result and when I told him his test showed he did not have HIV, he broke down and cried like a baby. He said, “I’ve applied for a job in the Gulf and HIV test is mandatory there. I thought I’d get the result, whatever it is, from here first. If I die on a plane or in a war they will say I died a heroic death. If die of AIDS, it is such a shame. I am so relieved now.” If this is the reaction in elite circles, the poorer classes are worse off. Children born to parents with AIDS are still denied admission in some schools. AIDS is a great social leveler –it was initially thought only truck drivers and sex workers would test HIV positive, but doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers—list of such people with AIDS is long and cuts across all strata of society.