A surge in HIV infections in Ireland has been met with racism, stigma and
budget cuts, writes activist Noel Walsh
As
one of the few people in Ireland out of the HIV closet, I became an activist
largely through naïvety about people’s attitude to Aids in this
country.
I was diagnosed in the US 17 years ago. I was working in a restaurant where
all the waiters, barmen, the owner and his partner were dying. It was scary;
it seemed you were diagnosed then dead within a few short months. I came home
to ‘mammy’, as we gay men usually do when anything is wrong. In
Dublin, I ended up isolated in
hospital. They put a tent up in front of the door and made
people change into a white suit with hat, gloves and mask before entering.
I couldn’t wait to return to the US where
I got access to AZT. It killed many, but it was something.
Coming out of the dark
“Returning to Ireland in the late 80s with just 60 T-cells, I was sick
and had prepared my obituary picture. I was horrified at the lack of support.
I called the only HIV and Aids organisation I knew, explaining that I needed
somewhere to live and social welfare payment. All they could offer was an
art class.
“Eventually I found place and my health improved. Suddenly, it dawned
on me I might be around for a while.
I put an ad in the classified section of our local gay magazine, in search
of a partner or shag mate. The paper called me to make sure I knew what I
was doing. I didn’t realise how few people were openly HIV positive.
The ad produced great contacts including lots of other positive guys. I decided
that if we were to get the services we needed, we needed an ‘out’
representative.
“I now sit on the National Aids Strategy Committee and sub-committees
for care, management, education and prevention. I am involved with our Gay
Health Network and the HIV Services Network and am health and HIV editor of
GCN (Gay Community News). I had a heart attack two years ago due to a side
effect of Kaletra and was registered blind about five years ago, maybe a result
of toxoplasmosis, perhaps a reaction from the meds I was on then – they
never found out.
Sharp rise in HIV
“Compared with the UK, the number of people living with HIV in Ireland
is still small: around 3,408 at the end of 2003. But diagnoses in the last
seven years have leapt by 243 per cent. Of 399 new cases in 2003, 75 were
among gay men, compared with 46 in 2002, possibly reflecting a pan European
trend of increased risky sexual behaviour in this group. Of the 221
heterosexually-acquired cases, 181 (81.9 per cent) were born in sub-Saharan
Africa and 30 (13.6 per cent) in Ireland.
Ireland’s role reversal
“Over the past decade, Ireland has experienced an entirely unfamiliar
phenomenon - immigration. For centuries, Ireland sent her sons and daughters
across the ocean to set up new lives on distant shores. We have sung songs
about it for
generations. Now the tables have turned. We now have many asylum seekers,
non-nationals and immigrants from Africa, South America and Asia setting up
homes in places like Dublin, Longford and Cork.
“If HIV and Aids services were struggling before, they are now at serious
risk of closure. Shamefully, however, Ireland has shown itself to be quite
racist, with many taxpayers begrudging giving their ‘hard-earned cash’
to people they see as ‘bleeding the country dry’.
“So, where once we had to deal with homophobia and
ignorance around HIV/Aids, now we are dealing with racism, too. Our organisations
have adapted and our diverse positive community is well represented, but they
are still shamefully under-funded.
Stigma, cuts and deportations
“That said, we have some of the best education and prevention programs
in the world with free meds through our NHS and dedicated HIV clinics. Our
system used to treat everyone that needed it. But all that has changed. Like
the UK, Ireland is deporting people on treatment back to countries where no
treatment exists.
“Social housing is poor and virtually excludes single people. State
disability benefit is barely enough to live on and recently they have tightened
up on rent and dietary allowances. Government HIV and Aids funding, once solely
for those with HIV, is being spent on non-HIV related purposes.
“There is still huge stigma attached to a positive diagnosis here and
it seems the advent of combination therapy has made this worse, not better,
as it has pushed everything to do with HIV back underground. There are so
few here out as positive.”
Julienne’s story
Julienne (pictured above) is a single mum living in the west of Ireland with
her son. She is involved with the Aids West HIV organisation.
“My ex-partner and I were diagnosed in 1996. There were
few couples in our situation and little counselling for women and mothers.
I was pregnant and had a one-year-old.
“My ex-partner blamed me for his infection. He had used heroin many
years ago but failed to tell me until were already living together. He said
he’d been through rehab and tested negative. I was a single mother when
we met so he targeted this as a factor in our diagnosis. But it was not so.
The shame game
“I was referred to a consultant in Dublin who told me I’d live
to see my children become adults, which was enough. But my local doctor made
me feel like I was dying and urged me to move to Dublin to be near HIV specialists,
tell my family and so on. I was frightened and confused. My consultant told
me to live where I was happiest. Her advice was the best I got.
“I lost contact with some friends, and closeness with others. I was
refused a job and told they needed someone with ‘certain standards socially’.
I was spat on and called names in the street by people I didn’t know.
These days I kick back,
having no patience for self-righteousness or false morality.
“A lot of ‘shame’ is still pushed at me but I am too busy
being a mum to let it get to me. Many presume you have a terrible lifestyle;
that you must be a junkie or a prostitute. You get strange nods when you mention
you are a single
parent - we get blamed for a lot. But as long as people are marginalised and
kicked to the outer peripheries of society for their ‘differences’,
risk behaviour will increase and health will be hurt.
Breach of human rights
“The Irish government has axed the Nutrition Allowance. To me this is
a basic human rights issue; many young mums with HIV struggle to fund their
recommended diet, as do young, single men. Recently, a pregnant HIV positive
woman was deported back to a country with no treatment for HIV. She had started
treatment to protect her unborn baby. This is morally wrong and legally questionable.
I often think of her and wonder at the anguish she must be going through just
because people can’t muster up enough compassion for ‘non-nationals’.
Now she may become drug resistant, as may her unborn baby.
Seeds of hope
“On World Aids Day I did a small community campaign about HIV and many
people learned I was HIV positive. Since then, none has stopped being anything
but supportive. Some were mums at my son’s school, others were community
volunteers , some were young students. It was very, very satisfying to hear
young people debate HIV and talk about what they would do if someone in their
class had an HIV positive parent or classmate. I remember thinking, ‘My
son will be OK and we won’t have to hide it’. We have just got
new a HIV
consultant at the Galway’s University College Hospital which is a lifeline
for people unable to travel to Dublin.”
Ann’s story
Ann, 34, is from Kenya. She has lived in Ireland for eight months and was
recently diagnosed HIV positive.
“I’ve only lived here a short while and am just getting used to
it. I’m living in a hostel for asylum seekers. I get about 19 Euros
a week to live on. It’s crazy because I have to eat what they cook in
the hostel, which is usually Irish food. I can’t cook there for myself
but I’m talking to my social worker about it.
“Treatment in Ireland is good; we get free HIV herapy. We have to buy
it in Kenya and it’s very expensive. My T-cell count has risen to 356
and my health improved. My viral load is detectable but I’m hoping it
will be undetectable soon. I’m coping well with drug side effects. There
is a lot of stigma, not just in my community. Even Irish people do not talk
about HIV and some are surprised I talk about it. Sometimes it’s scary
because you don’t want to open up to people and tell them you’re
positive.”
• Irish Aids Day march, 15 June. www.dublinaidsalliance.com
• GCN, Ireland’s glossy, free gay mag, www.gcn.ie
• Aids West, Galway, www.aidswest.ie
• Open Heart House, www.openhearthouse.ie
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