Woman injected with HIV+ blood now faces social stigma

MADURAI: The woman who was infected with HIV virus unintentionally and her husband fear the social stigma more than the disease itself. This is something the Madurai Network of Positive People (MNP+) says will be more difficult to deal with even though the infection was a result of transfusion.

Her 27-year-old husband from Sattur said even his closest friends were standing several feet away when they came to see him. “I don’t blame them,’’ he said.

He said he had refused to accept the two cents of land allocated by the government as compensation for the distress caused to them as it was situated about 15 kilometres from their present residence in Sattur. “It is as if they had given us a secluded godforsaken place where others wouldn’t interfere, but I want a place within the town though I can already see that we are going to be stigmatized,’’ he said.

MNP+ president B V Babu, said there were 2,000 people in their positive living group almost all of who still experienced problems after coming out in the open about their HIV status. “NACO (National AIDS Control Organization) went for care and support in the year 2012 though the issue of social stigma was not addressed properly. Now, no awareness is being created and it is getting worse,’’ he said.

Just a handful of people with HIV were working in public sector establishments and private offices. Otherwise, all of them were self-employed as other people in society were not ready to accept them as one of their own.

“I have a small agricultural farm, but even there I must listen to comments from the others in the village which can be hurtful,’’ Babu said. When such people apply for the ₹1,000 monthly dole given by the government for their welfare, the revenue officials make inquiries in the neighbourhood. “Thus, they come to know that they have an HIV/AIDS person in their midst and the discrimination starts there,” he said.

HIV positive people were also given priority in schemes like green houses but as verification was conducted to check this status, there had been cases of the neighbours becoming hostile and not allowing their children to play with their children, said Babu.

R Kannan, secretary of the group, says that a former Madurai district collector asked them to stop distributing water from a can at the Government Rajaji Hospital in 2012 because people objected to it. “Even the staff who work in the HIV/AIDS section in hospital consider it to be a demeaning job. So, how are they going to make the society see us in a better light?’’ he said.