ZUCO'S BLOG

While a lot of people have either been in a state of shock or been mourning over the loss of five young lives snatched away for no particular reason over the weekend, I received a copy of "The Act" (published by AfA) and read one of the editorials which affected me quite a bit:

Every week I meet and counsel at least two to three people diagnosed with HIV. Most of them younger in age as time go by since I started my HIV work several years ago. The record for me thus far is a 16 year old boy who was recently diagnosed with HIV. He passed me a letter to give to his parents in the event he was to die before them. In it was his apology for what he felt was the shame that he had brought to his family and his apology for getting infected. He could not bring himself to tell them he has HIV as he was afraid of their rejection. While the country comes up with more draconian laws to 'stop' the epidemic in Singapore, the state of stigma and discrimination is reaching an all time high. We seem to be far away from universal access and a better system of care and support for people living with HIV. Besides the law that prevents health care workers from carelessly disclosing their patients' HIV status, the government has not come up with any other regulations to prevent discrimination against people living with HIV.

This issue of the ACT is devoted to people living with HIV. Their lives are our business and their suffering and their pain are our pain as well. It is not just the job of AfA or the health care workers to lend them the shoulder to cry on but for the society as a whole to get out of their comfort zone and understand their plight in a manner that is real, sincere and tangible.

However, no policy or law can alone combat HIV/AIDS related discrimination. The fear and prejudice that lies at the core of the HIV/AIDS discrimination needs to be tackled at the community and national levels. A more enabling environment needs to be created to increase the visibility of people with HIV/AIDS as a 'normal' part of any society. In the future, the task is to confront the fear based messages and biased social attitudes, in order to reduce the discrimination and stigma of people who are living with HIV

I hold on to this letter and I pray for a time in the near future where he will come to me as say that it is no longer necessary cause he has told his family and they are supportive of him and will be there for him for many more healthy years to come.

Raphael Meyer
Guest Editor

I too have had my fair share of positive results during my time as a volunteer. And the record for me was a boy no older than 18 and obviously not in NS yet. I still remember him from our short chat - he was well spoken, plays a musical instrument and dressed neatly; obviously a son from a middle class family probably living in a private apartment or house.

After I had completed testing the person after him and was in the midst of placing the slip on the counter top, I noticed the dreaded red line on one of the slip. Immediately, I knew it was him. Even though the result was obvious, I was hoping beyond hope that the control line wouldn't appear and hence, make the test strip defective.

Unfortunately, the control line did appear 15 minutes later. I was almost on the verge of tears when I informed the supervisor who would be taking over the case.

When the boy came in to get his confirmatory test done, his face was expressionless. I didn't know what was going through his mind or if anything was going through it at all. I guess he was in a state of shock.

He was so young. And while I know that being HIV+ is not a death sentence, I was wondering how he was going to cope. How is he going to tell his parents? How long can he keep it a secret before they find out when he goes for his FFI before enlistment or when he needs to start on his medication?

The trend is obvious. More young men are getting tested positive. They are usually in their late teens to mid 20s. I keep wondering why this is happening. Are they getting the right information? Or is the information denied to them because of some authority figure's opinion that talking about sex will only encourage the young to experiment?

I know the government is taking the approach of abstinence. But at what cost? Even if we harp and nag about abstaining from sex, we can't ignore the fact that a certain percentage will still experiment. And without the necessary information on safe sex, should we be surprise that they get infected.

This is Singapore's head in the sand. In our self-righteousness, we stigmatise certain categories of the population and criminalise homosexual sex (while not pursuing the letter of the law) and thus preventing ourselves from reaching out to those most at risk - the young Singaporeans - because of that same judgemental and self-righteous attitude.

We may make it an offence for those who are unaware of their HIV status and unknowingly infect another person. But this does not prevent the young and ignorant from experimenting and engaging in high risk activities.

It is a sad fact that some people in the establishment assumes that any activities relating to HIV prevention is a cover for "promoting homosexual behaviour". If this continues, we should not be surprise to see the level of infection shoot up and become an official epidemic.

So what have our country done to reach out to the general population? Nothing much considering how some PAP ministers (I shan't name names here) still believe that HIV is caused by "the homosexuals". Hence, they do the only thing they are best at, blame "the homosexuals" and pass more laws.

But unfortunately, laws can only do so much, and it's only after the fact. I am afraid that with the current attitude of our ignorant technocratic ministers, I will see more and more teenagers, male and female, getting tested positive.

Who do we blame and prosecute then? And what is the use of pointing fingers when it can never reverse time and un-infect the teen.

Meanwhile, the rest of Singapore will always see it as someone else's problem. Until that someone else is themselves or someone in their family. Then, it's too late.

Labels: hiv/aids, lgbt, singapore