Jakarta – Stigmatization and discrimination are two crucial problems for people living with HIV/AIDS who seek medical treatment and to deal with these social attitude problems requires active participation from all the stakeholders, according to a women foundation.
Jurnal Perempuan Foundation said many people living with HIV/AIDS have been reluctant to go to hospitals for counseling, testing and medical treatment because of the stigma and discrimination against them.
"(Because of) fear of discrimination from their social surroundings, many people living with HIV/AIDS have chosen not to go to hospital to seek relevant information and medical treatment," Agustina from Jurnal Perempuan Foundation said here recently.
She cited for instance that those living with HIV/AIDS would feel uneasy and uncomfortable if asked by medical workers about their marital status and many medical staff tended to show hostility to unmarried patients.
"If it is obligatory for hospitals, clinics and medical workers to know their patients' status, more and more unmarried patients, including those infected by the virus, will not take the initiative to have a voluntary test and medical treatment," she said
"I propose that the question 'are you married or not?' could be changed to 'are you sexually active or not?' " Agustin said.
Masruchah, the secretary-general for Indonesian Woman's Coalition for Justice and Democracy, said that the Health Ministry should be concerned at the negative impact of this type of questioning.
"We should not blame medical staff for asking about marital status since it is part of the procedure. The Ministry is the body who can change this," Masruchah said.
Health officers were not the only ones who needed to be more aware, added Maman A. Rahman from the Center for Education and Information on Islam and Women's Right Issues (Rahima). "Religious people especially their leaders also (can) play a greater role in solving the HIV/AIDS problem," he said.
Maman acknowledged that it was very hard to ask religious people to be sympathetic to people living with HIV/AIDS.
"Many religious leaders disagree with condom usage, even in high risk populations, since they believe it only promotes free sex," he said. "The same also applied to the government's efforts to provide clean needles for drug users who are living with HIV/AIDS. They believed it would only promote narcotic using," he added.
Maman argued that however HIV/AIDS was the common problem of society. Religious people, especially Muslim people, must take part in solving this problem.
"Rahima trys to explain about HIV/AIDS problems to religious people using a phased method," said Maman. Rahima firstly explained about the importance of reproductive health. secondly, it then explained about the HIV/AIDS problem. Thirdly, it explained that the HIV/AIDS problem was also connected to the issue of inequality between man and woman.
He said that religious people were able to quickly receive the first phase of the explanation. (mrs)