Activists Threaten to Support AIDS Sufferers Who Decide to Sue Mauritius Gov’t

President of PILS (Prevention, Information and Fight Against AIDS), Nicolas Ritter on Sunday indicated that PILS will support any AIDS sufferer who takes the state to court if he or she feels being discriminated against.

Speaking to journalists at his office in the capital Port Louis to mark the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial which will be celebrated on Sunday evening, Ritter said that many positive changes have occurred since the first cases of AIDS were detected in the island some 15 years back. Unfortunately, he said, the most cases of discrimination take place in state hospitals.

Ritter indicated that in many cases, AIDS sufferers have not received the necessary treatment and care and in some cases the confidentiality which surrounds the disease from which patients are suffering have not been respected.

These negative reactions from hospital staff have been instrumental in causing the death of many patients. Many more have lost their jobs as employers have come to know from what disease these patients are suffering, said Ritter.

The president of PILS enumerated the numerous problems being faced by those affected by the disease. There are only three medical practitioners who take care of more than 3000 patients at the center in Cassis in Port Louis, he said. Furthermore, he said, there is only one psychologist who is responsible for the whole of Mauritius to advise patients at the seat of PILS, in the center in Cassis and in the Mauritius Prisons.

Ritter deplored the nonchalant attitude of the government which he said has since long promised that more doctors and psychologists will be mandated to help AIDS victims but that nothing has been done since now, especially when the number of sufferers is increasing daily.

The president of PILS also decried the lack of anti-retroviral drugs distributed to AIDS victims. Concerning the monthly allowance given to “Persons Living with AIDS”, Ritter added that PILS had recommended that the allowance should be given following a case by case study of requests, but that due to political considerations, the government is squandering a lot of money by giving it to everybody who is supposedly suffering from the disease.He announced that he was soon going to meet officials of the ministry of Health to sort out all these problems.

Source African Press Agency

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