| Q and A with the WOMEN' S NET |
| TAC has launched a defiance campaign to ensure that people start getting affordable HIV/AIDS drugs. What is your response? |
The MF fully supports a defiance campaign not with standing the following recommendation: The campaign must be designed and strategised to create awareness among the various stakeholders as to their social responsibility towards curbing and eradicating this disease. It must be proactive and positive in approach and not disruptive! |
| What plans do you have to make HIV/AIDS drugs affordable? |
1. The Provincial AIDS council should go on a fund-raising drive in the private sector. This would help our already stretched health and social welfare budget. These drives should target all the pharmacies, multi-national, business houses and the general public by means of tin collections at various outlets. 2. We can also start an AIDS lottery for our Province to bridge the financial burden KZN is faced with. 3. Negotiate at National level with the pharmaceutical companies who make these drugs to give us the best possible price but also to give free drugs for clinical trial testing on an on going basis. 4. Stop putting money into awareness campaigns as of 2001 and all National grants should be redirected to the health budget to purchase anti-retrovirals with the aim of modifying the disease conditions and improving the infected patients quality and length of life. 5. Ensure that all medical aids pay for anti-retroviral and this would force drug companies to lower their price to a minimum/maximum price a medical aid will pay. |
| One of the concerns about making HIV/AIDS drugs available is that we don’t have the capacity to implement what your policy around building health care facilities especially in rural areas? |
The Minority Front has repeatedly in parliamentary health debates called for the renaming the INKOSI Albert Luthuli Central Hospital to the ILAL AIDS Research Central Hospital, which will send out a stronger message that the government does care! A specialised hospital will have the necessary capacity to implement proper treatment and the province will have better control of the disease under one roof statistically apart from consistent learning or research that will take place. However, with regard to building health care facilities in rural areas, I believe that many of the clinics built in KZN are not being fully used because of the lack of equipment and staff, hence I would suggest that the department look at these clinics demographically and geographically and adopt a few of them as satelite AIDS clinics to the central hospital in Cato Manor, where these are fully resourced and utilised as referral centres with an efficient transport system. This method will be successful because both the up-down and down-up management approaches are being utilised, and hence will be most effective both in terms of financial and human resource management. Also these clinics or level one hospitals in rural areas must have a drop-in-rape crises centre attached to the clinic or hospital. |
| Prevention is better than cure. What prevention programmes can you offer that are different from what has already been done? |
The only prevention programmes that have to be looked at are from the point of legislation in terms of a proper AIDS policy Nationally from which a Provincial AIDS policy can be developed and people must be made aware of these and allowed to be part of the decision-making process. This policy must be directly under the control of the Provincial AIDS Council e.g. the compulsory registration of all NGO’s and CBO’s dealing with AIDS issues, the notifiability issue, the issue of litigation if negligence or irresponsibility is the cause for transmission, etc. Also, I strongly believe that multi-vitamins or immune boosting products must be made payable by all medical aids because they are generally excluded or only included for specific conditions. If this can be accomplished by amending Medial Aid Legislation then it could lead to disease modification and enhance the quality of life, as well as lead to a positive life style. The religious bodies should be mandated and funded by donors and government to teach their followers about AIDS and the social and moral aspects of the disease condition and this should be fair to all religious denominations and controlled by the Provincial Aids Council. Also, the MF has suggested that all school book covers should be printed with AIDS signs and slogans to constantly remind our youth and this will be preventative by far in the future. Also, the Department of Transport should coin a slogan like the “Arrive Alive” information or awareness sign for AIDS prevention and these should be strategically placed on provincial roads especially for the truck drivers and general public. The MF has mentioned this in parliamentary debates as well. The MF has called for debates in schools surrounding this subject and has also asked the Department of Education to include AIDS as a section of the biology test book. The MF has strongly recommended and promoted the need to develop a vaccine that will be the final preventative and eradication measure. |
| How do you propose we deal with the issue of stigma? Will you disclose your HIV status? |
In the MF we have discussed the issue of disclosure and have agreed that one of our members was HIV+ or had AIDS, we would disclose our status publicly because this would indicate our social responsibility to the disease condition and to public awareness that there should be no stigma attached to the disease because we are all learning and still finding our way. The only reasonable thing to do is to have knowledge of the members and ages we are dealing with to know how to plan our budget and prepare for the future of our country. As I mentioned if this central hospital is renamed then the general public will know that there is no stigma where specialisation is involved especially with regards to health, and we have experienced this with TV and psychiatry where the general community has learned to live with affected persons and have broadened their knowledge with regard to the myths surrounding these medial conditions, so the MF cannot see why this would not apply to HIV/AIDS! People are always receptive to messages of health care. The MF stressed in the parliamentary debates that the renaming of the central hospital, as well as a hug from our Health Minister to AIDS sufferers from time to time will get rid of this social stigma which has a negative impact on the disease prognosis and perception as well as all our costly efforts to curb this disease by way of awareness campaigns. Simple acts such as these, the MF believes will put way or remove the stigma that lies embedded in the mind of the ignorant! Hence the MF believes that we in KZN have the political will to destigmatise AIDS. The MF has always stood by the fact that AIDS should be made notifiable then the stigma will be automatically removed because it will be treated like all other communicable diseases and not as a deadly disease that we have no control over feeding our fear! |
| HIV/AIDS treatment must be seen within the broader context of decent living standards. The resent restructuring plans around igoli 2002, (to be mirrored in Cape Town and Durban) have emphasised privatisation which will decrease access to basic services. What plans does your Party have to deal with erosion of basic services? |
The MF supports this view of privatisation as long as the urban poor are subsidised by the government, especially for essential services and primary needs such as water, lights and refuse removal. The MF believes that this is the option because the government saves on infrastructure costs and this saving can be used to subsidise the poor for water, etc. However, the MF advocates that there should be a special tariff rating for the urban poor based on income and affordability. Also local municipalities must implement indigent support programmes, funded by unconditional national grants to ensure that a basic service such as electricity and water supply, etc. does reach the poorest of the urban poor. This would ensure that HIV/AIDS sufferers from these communities will be looked after. |
| What is your Party’s opinion on the sex industry and sex worker in particular? |
The MF believes that the sex industry is a socio-economic reality being one of the oldest professions the world over but we acknowledge that the sex industry is morally not acceptable. |
| Where does your party stand on the decriminlisation or legalisation of sex work and which route would your party support: legalisation or discrimination? |
Leading from the MF opinion on the sex industry and sex workers, accordingly the MF proposes that there activities should be decriminalised and hence legalised. The MF reasons are as follows: 1. The government can focus adequately on this group and make provisions to combat HIV/AIDS among them. 2. Also their income must be taxed. 3. A red light district in the CBD should be promoted to restrict workers in a particular area, as well as to ensure that protection is afforded not only to sex workers but also to their clients. 4. Local health workers can work in a smaller area reducing human resource requirements and enhancing control. 5. SAPS will be assisted tremendously with the issue of crime in the CBD. 6. Also in reverse the sex workers would be protected from abuse from certain members of SAPS and pimps if they are registered. 7. Registration would allow the health authorities to keep track of them and prevent child prostitution. 8. Registration would target pimps who are instrumental in the drug trade business and other petty crime. 9. There should be promotion of the red light district for tourist purposes. 10. The MF calls for specific legislation with regards to the sex industry and sex workers to enforce control. 11. Local authorities should support this industry as an incentive to do regular HIV and STD screening. 12. There should also be an officially recognised representative body to take care of their interests. |
