Minister rejects NGOs' bid

CHARITY MUSA
Correspondent | Friday April 13, 2007 00:00

Health minister Angela Cifire was reacting to calls by People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) support groups in Ndola on the Copperbelt in that the state should introduce separate ART centres to reduce stigma, as patients felt ashamed to receive drugs from health centres and hospitals.

Cifire said in an interview that government was fighting stigma by helping people living positive and affected to interact on a daily basis.

She said government had shown a political will to fight HIV/AIDS in the most effective way by encouraging people to accept each other through interaction.

Cifire said it could not help people living with HIV/AIDS to have separate places because they also needed to go to hospitals for treatment for other opportunistic infections that they may develop.

She said having ART centres at the clinics would also save them time for treatment.

Cifire said the ART centres at hospitals and clinics had standardised facilities to offer treatment and service to the needy.

She said separating these facilities would continue creating stigma, which government is trying to fight.

The support groups in Ndola townships of Natufwane and Genesis in Chifubu requested the government to open up separate ART centres because they felt that people living with HIV/AIDS were being stigmatised whenever they went to clinics for treatment and getting their fresh ARV supplies.

The group members who did not want to be quoted complained that whenever they went to clinics, mothers who took their children under five could not mingle with them, fearing they would 'infect their children with AIDS'.

They said because of the stigma they faced at the clinics, some had stopped visiting the health institutions and opted to ask their friends to get the drugs for them. (Sila Press Agency)