Government Supervision Urged to Eliminate Discrimination against People with HIV

A new report on the discrimination people with HIV in China face has now been released.

As CRI's Su Yi tells us, the report provides us some insight into HIV discrimination at hospitals and clinics across the country.

The report addresses a number of issues faced by individuals, including the difficulty they have in accessing medical services and the discrimination they face by health care workers, which -- in some cases -- includes people being denied surgeries or other medical treatments.

Meng Lin has been HIV positive for the last 14 years.

A recent lung infection almost took Meng's life.

However, he says it's not just the physical pain that he has to suffer through.

Meng points out that people with HIV who need medical treatment are often turned away from regular hospitals, given that they're obligated to refer HIV/AIDS patients to infectious disease hospitals, or hospitals designated to handle HIV/AIDS cases.

"The existence of HIV/AIDS designated hospitals in China is a major obstacle that has prevented people with HIV from receiving proper and timely medical treatment since some medical facilities use the designated hospitals as an excuse to reject patients from receiving routine medical services.

Meng Lin says the Chinese medical system needs to stop segregating HIV/AIDS patients.

"I have been to more than ten countries where I've found that people with HIV go to see doctors as ordinary patients. There is no such thing like in China, which has "HIV/AIDS designated hospitals. Therefore, I believe the designated hospitals should be removed."

Zhang Ke is a doctor with the You An Hospital in Beijing.

He says another problem HIV/AIDS sufferers run into is a lack of medical understanding about the disease itself.

"In fact, many doctors know little about AIDS. Doctors specialize in different areas. They mistakenly think AIDS patients won't live long and so it's none of their business, but the infectious disease hospitals' sole responsibility to treat AIDS patients. Meanwhile, there are some worries that doctors would be exposed to HIV infections, which puts them under a lot of pressure at work.

The new report on HIV/AIDS here in China, which has been completed by the International Labour Office for China and Mongolia, also points out that progress with the disease is being made here in China.

Still, the report is recommending that the government get tougher on medical facilities which turn away HIV/AIDS patients.

The report also suggests that the results of any investigations into medical facilities that turn away HIV/AIDS patients needs to be made public.

For CRI, I'm SU Yi.