Tough talking Jo Cole is angry. But she is even more furious at the tabloid paper that tried to get her to attack HIV positive immigrants through its headlines. PN’s Kwangu Liwewe went to speak to her
I admit I was apprehensive when I went to interview Jo Cole, a white, heterosexual HIV positive woman with strong views on the impact of immigration on HIV services. After years of covering the impact of HIV/Aids on Africans, I am angry too: at the hardships many face either from discrimination, stigma, poor housing or access to treatment. So I went prepared to counter arguments about ‘medical tourists’ but it wasn’t necessary. Jo Cole is a strong woman with a bone to chew with the NHS. Afterwards, I felt invigorated and left hoping she would channel her considerable energy into the HIV community and help us stand together to fight off attacks upon us. This is our interview:
I rang the paper in January this year to complain about an article they did with the screaming headline: ‘Man with deadly Aids virus runs amok’. It turns out the man had anti-retrovirals on him on his way to a country that bars HIV positive people from visiting.
Half of me was laughing and the other half was furious. I told the editor that, by perpetuating such headlines, the paper is creating a distinction between the haves and have nots. After a long conversation about the need for effective education on HIV issues, the editor asked if a reporter could call me and interview me on various aspects. From then on the reporter started pushing. She wanted me to say, it’s disgusting that immigrants from Africa are coming to the UK and stealing “our” treatment. The reporter must have phoned me at least 20 times. She started to flatter me, telling me that I’m articulate and intelligent and that it’s my story they want to tell. I was first offered £5,000 then it went up to £10,000 if I chose to be anonymous and £15,000 if I agreed to be identified. I sought advice from my fiancé and my consultant, who all thought my words would be twisted to suit the paper’s right-wing views.
I don’t care where anyone acquired HIV. What I do care about is that there is a strain on facilities and the Government should do something about it. If you allow people into the country then you should take responsibility for them. Everyone should have treatment. I don’t care if they are white, blue or pink with yellow spots, we all need equality. It should be a right and not a privilege to be on treatment.
Where has all the money disappeared? There was a time when HIV was trendy in this country and a lot of money was ring-fenced for HIV treatment and services. Where has the money gone?
The gay and African HIV communities get most of the support while we heterosexuals get nothing. What we need is fairness. I’m sick of walking into HIV organisations and finding services are just for these two communities. Who is supporting us?
I agree. There is a need, for not only white heterosexuals but all HIV positive people to scream and shout. Governments must justify themselves. We need more education on HIV. I’m not asking for special treatment but equality. I was diagnosed two years ago and nobody knew how to cope at the first hospital. I wasn’t given any information on how to deal with it until much later. Some HIV organisations have their own internal politics. I offered my services to Positively Women as I have some fundraising and marketing experience and they turned me away saying they had no money. I then offered it for free and got no response.
I’m a lone child. My mum left my dad when I was seven and I stayed with my dad and grandmother. Both my parents are young. My dad’s 60 and my mum’s 53. I’m 37 and engaged to a guy I’ve known for three years.
I went to see my GP with a sore throat and raging temperature, which was so high I was sent to Barnet Hospital where I was kept for six weeks. I was very ill and the doctors tested me for everything except HIV. In the end a junior doctor asked me if I’d mind an HIV test and I told them I didn’t. They said the first test was ‘dropped in the lab’, in fact it had come back weakly positive. So, I took another one but it was a bank holiday so I had to wait five days to get the result, and it was positive. They put me in a minicab with a nurse and shipped me off to the Royal Free Hospital.
It was the junior doctor and nurse who broke the news to me. The doctor was wobbly and she later told me she had flipped a coin with a colleague over who would break the news. They were completely untrained for that eventuality.
Initially I cried. I was devastated. Then I went blank. I guess your self-preservation kicks in. I asked the doctor to call my boyfriend and he came straight to the hospital. He couldn’t have been more supportive. I rang my mum and that was the first time I heard her cry.
You don’t think of how such situations affect other people. At that stage you only think of yourself and the comfort you need. I’ve always been well informed but my initial instinct was: ‘I’m dead’; I was very scared and hysterical. I couldn’t get a hold of my dad and when I did he wasn’t supportive - just as I expected. He said it was my fault.
We were going through a rough time. It was some guy who even looked like him. It was just the one time. I think my partner feels very guilty about it.
I felt stupid, guilty, angry and furious. I still feel so bloody stupid. How f****** unnecessary. I gave myself something that will eventually kill me.
My CD4 is high so I am not on treatment. I’m scared that because of the huge influx of people acquiring the disease and Primary Care Trusts cutting HIV budgets by 30 per cent, when it comes to my turn, treatment may not be readily available. We need more money.
Maybe it is people like me with HIV who should talk more about it. As a white, heterosexual, HIV positive woman, people assume I’m a prostitute or drug user. Well I’m neither. I don’t screw around; it was just an accident.
If I had got HIV through a blood transfusion, people would feel sorry for me. There is a need for us to scream for more money. If it was cancer it would be high profile and that disgusts me.
I’m on antidepressants as they stop me from panicking. I have arthritis problems, I sero-converted violently and ended up with pneumonia; I find it difficult to relax. I take 12 tablets, three times a day, for all these problems and I’m not on antiretrovirals yet.
I see HIV as my final mistake. I had a child adopted when I was a teenager, I ended up in prison once and I never achieved the education I know I’m capable of; and now I’m HIV positive. I didn’t learn, and that’s what I regret the most. Nobody on this earth deserves HIV. It’s the lack of control: just not knowing. It’s very sad and very painful. If you can’t learn from this you can’t learn from anything. If one good thing comes of this interview I hope it is that at least one person doesn’t get infected.
