Today I am going to discuss the discrimination that people infected with HIV/AIDS experience on a regular basis. I read articles Stigma, discrimination and attitudes to HIV & AIDS and the article HIV patients face discrimination from doctors. These two articles expresses the kind of discrimination that HIV/AIDS patients face and why. The first article basically talked about how so many people that are infected were surveyed out of 2500 people that were surveyed 27% said that they felt some sort of discrimination from health care providers; they were shunned from friend and family, and discriminated against in their communities. Apparently people make them feel inferior and go out of their ways to not have to encounter people with HIV/AIDS. There was a study that was mentioned in the article HIV patients face discrimination from doctors that said that 54% of the people in the study reported feeling like they were discriminated against by physicians, 39% form nurses and other medial staff, 32% said that dentist discriminated against them or made them feel uncomfortable, 31% form workers in the hospital finally 8% said that case workers and social workers also discriminate against people with HIV/AIDS.
Although it is illegal to discriminate against anyone because they are positive for HIV/AIDS it is still commonly done on an everyday basis. I watched the 1993 movie Philadelphia starring Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks were Tom Hanks was infected with the HIV virus. Once his employer recognized that he had the disease they made up a illegitimate reason to fire him. So he is now looking to sew his former employer for discrimination. He goes to Denzel who is a big shot lawyer and asked him to take on his case. At first Denzel refuses to do the case out of fear and ignorance to the disease. But he soon came around and took on the case but he had to do a lot of adjusting to being around Tom Hanks because he was so afraid of being infected with it himself. I liked this movie because he showed how people really treat people that are HIV positive. Of course in the movie they made Tom Hanks look so sick the entire time when in most cases people infected with the virus don’t always look that way. The movie showed both sides of the lifestyle. There was several times in the movie that I felt sorry for Tom Hanks. I hated the way people looked at him especially when he took them that he was positive.
As I sat and thought about how everyone treats people who are infected I thought of how hard it would be for someone to come forth and admit that they are positive when they know that they will start to receive the same treatment. In the article Stigma, discrimination and attitudes to HIV & AIDS UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon says
“Stigma remains the single most important barrier to public action. It is a main reason why too many people are afraid to see a doctor to determine whether they have the disease, or to seek treatment if so. It helps make AIDS the silent killer, because people fear the social disgrace of speaking about it.”
That being said I think that if we started being more open to people who are infected and as a community offer more information about the disease then communities will began to learn to except it better. I am not saying that people are not still going to have their own opinions about people who are infected or that people discrimination will cease all together. I am only saying that when people are more knowledgeable about the disease then they are less likely to shun or discriminate against people who have the disease out of fear.
If you are interested in reading more here are the websites for the articles:
Stigma, discrimination and attitudes to HIV & AIDS is www.avert.org/aidsstigma.htm
HIV patients face discrimination from doctors is www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/32243.php
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Wow! Interesting. I think alot of stigma is based on fear. Fear, wich is turned into stigma due to lack of education. Alot of information people have are really myths or half truths because the information is always changing. HIV/AIDS is a farely new virus with its first U.S. cases in the early 1980's, so I can understand how people are confused on how it's transmitted. Not to excuse out right or any kind of discrimination but just to shed more light on why it may happen.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct when you say the more we know the less likely we are to discriminate against a person who is positive. It takes education at all levels to get people comfortable with this disease. Once people truly understand how they can become infected they will loosen up.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I had a student in class who was positive and they didn't say anything to the class. Then when the men's panel came to class he went and sat with them. Mouths dropped to the floor. Had he told the class at the beginning their acceptance of him would have been very different. If you get to know the person before you know about the disease you are less likely to discriminate.