– Hello, hi, I want to transfer my child to your school.
– Then transfer.
– But the thing is he is infected with HIV.
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– What?
– HIV.
– What is that?
– You know, AIDS.
– Sis, tell me again in plain in English so I can understand.
– You know, СПИД.
– Oh. We admit such students only after a special permission, I shouldn’t tell you how it is; you know it better than I.
– But the thing is the infection is not transmitted via airborne contamination, so my child doesn’t pose any danger to the other children.
– Sis, I am a bit busy right now, let’s talk some other time.
This is an extract from a phone conversation with the principal of one of the schools in the community of Kentron. The principal hung up without hearing me out and not wishing to listen to the explanations of an HIV-infected child’s mother that doctors assure that HIV is transmitted only through sexual intercourse and intravenous injection of drugs, which wasn’t common at least among children attending elementary school.
We got such “shifty” answers also from the principals of a set of schools in Shengavit, Ajapnyak, Arabkir and other communities.
Calling tens of schools, nursery schools and kindergartens, we introduced ourselves as a mother of an HIV-infected child, saying that we wanted the child to go to that particular nursery school or elementary school. When we asked dentists to register us for tooth filling, we honestly admitted to being HIV infected. Both school principals and dentists just refused to have anything to do with a man infected with HIV and “dodged” using various excuses, just making the person on the other end of the line pity them. Explaining that they were overcrowded, because of which “the City Hall ordered not to admit children,” and not wishing to “take a sin upon his soul,” the principal of a nursing school in Shengavit mentioned the address of a nursing school not far from them, even giving the phone number and advising “Talk to them, perhaps, they have places.”
The head of one of the pre-school educational institutions in Ajapnyak said that he couldn’t make “arbitrary” decisions and had to necessarily consult with the superiors at the City Hall whether they could admit a child with HIV or not. Some school principals also hesitated and urged to call in a few days, in order to consult with doctors and respective institutions to find out whether that child “will contaminate the people around him.”
We were just astonished by the fact that the managers of those institutions lacked even basic knowledge about HIV/AIDS. Whereas they are the first link that should be aware of it and don’t contribute to deepening the social stigma and discrimination against people with HIV. According to the data of the Ministry of Healthcare, 110-115 million AMD of government money are spent on preventing and treating HIV/AIDS, but one can get a picture by these few simple examples that there are still a lot of things to do to prevent and inform about HIV/AIDS and eliminate discrimination.
The most striking thing was the refusals of dentists. When we asked a dentist working at one of the most famous dental centers of the capital to explain why he refused to provide service, he tried to explain his refusal “scientifically”: “We don’t have the tools to treat people infected with that virus. One needs special tools to disinfect. To kill the virus one needs very high temperature and an ordinary dentist doesn’t have that kind of technology.”
“The human immunodeficiency virus is not a stable virus and can be killed at 56 degrees within 36 minutes immediately after boiling. That virus is easy to disinfect and one doesn’t need special conditions for that. In dental clinics, it poses practically no threat, if dentists follow the basic rules of disinfection. The human immunodeficiency virus dies in the environment, if there is no blood or the blood has dried up. The hepatitis C virus is much more stable and cannot be killed even at a few times higher temperature,” Arshak Papoyan, the head of the epidemic supervision department, National Center for AIDS Prevention, said when Aravot asked him what conditions one needed to disinfect medical tools contaminated with human immunodeficiency virus.
Hovhannes Madoyan, the coordinator of a group raising the HIV problem, reasserted during a conversation with us that the most cases of discrimination were registered in the healthcare field: “Learning that a man is infected with HIV, doctors refuse to provide service, explaining that they can’t conduct this or that examination. For example, the workers of the National Cancer Institute didn’t conduct a biopsy on inguinal lymph nodes for a patient already with AIDS, saying that they didn’t have a specialist. When a local polyclinic or a regional hospital gives such an explanation, it is somehow understandable, but if no. 1 specialized center of the country gives such an answer, it is obvious that the reason is the stigma and discrimination. Admittedly, we apply to the ministry, we protect the rights of those people, and in the end, that person receives the proper medical care, but the overall situation doesn’t change.”
Mr. Madoyan assured that heads of ministries very often contributed to deepening the stigma and discrimination with their behavior: “Some convicts sewed their mouths recently and demanded something. The Minister of Justice said in his speech that they wouldn’t satisfy the demand, because one of the demands was drugs. It is not an appropriate phrase to be used by a minister. Drug addiction is a disease, and the Minister of Healthcare considers it to be a disease and has it treated. A sick man needs that material in the same way as a diabetic needs insulin, because his organism doesn’t produce enough insulin. A drug addict’s organism doesn’t produce enough endorphin, it should be injected, that person demands his medicine; should he be stigmatized?”
Let us note that the HIV Act of our country recently amended clearly stipulates the guarantees of protecting the rights and freedoms of persons infected with HIV: the fact of being infected with HIV cannot be a reason for restricting the rights and freedoms of an HIV-infected person. A man infected with HIV has a right to go to nursery school, elementary school, study at the educational institution he prefers, work, be treated without discrimination, be provided proper medical service etc. And most importantly, a man infected with HIV is not compelled to tell the workers of the mentioned institutions that he is infected, except for some cases stipulated by the law.
LUSINE BUDAGHYAN
P.S. We deliberately don’t make public the names of the elementary schools, nursery schools and dental clinics, not wishing to contribute to stigmatizing and discriminating against HIV-infected people. It is not ruled out that a parent wishing to send his child to elementary school or nursery school or a person in need of dental treatment will prefer an educational or a medical institution that evades people infected with HIV.
