Munasimenda Kanyama On the edge
LETTER FROM THE BRINK
As a proud African, father, teacher and business manager,
I am unaccustomed to feeling vulnerable. But all that changed on or around
25 June 2003 when I was persuaded to test for HIV at Northwick Park Hospital,
in Harrow.
When I asked the clinic about the advantages of doing so, I was told that,
if the test was positive, I could receive free NHS treatment. I agreed to
test and two days later my result came back HIV positive with a CD4 count
of 20. It was an enormously traumatic experience for me. I soon became depressed,
saw a rapid decline in my mental health and began to feel suicidal. With two
young children of school age at home to care for, I felt it was important
to keep in good mental and physical health. But I found sleeping hard, and
when I did manage to sleep, I was haunted every night by vivid nightmares
of dying and burying
relatives. I began to be afraid of sleep. However much I tried to put these
memories and fears out of my mind, the more they rang in my head. This left
me in a constant state of anxiety and hyper-arousal so that I was unable to
relax or feel safe. Then I became emotionally numb and unusually quiet and
distressed. All this affected my concentration, memory and attention. Fortunately,
the NHS was true to its word and started me on HIV therapy. Meanwhile I applied
for Exceptional Leave to Remain in the UK to enable me to continue accessing
this life-saving treatment and and finish my studies. The drugs began to work
and I started feeling much better and more hopeful.
I started volunteering for HIV organisations, including UKC, and last year
was elected chair of the HIV/AIDS Association of Zambia and EHH Service User
Forum.
I came to the UK to study for an MBA and feel strongly that people with HIV
who feel well enough to work should be allowed to do so. But immigration rules
do not allow this for people like me.No sooner had I started picking up the
pieces of my life, I got a long, wordy letter from the Home Office. It told
me that this government was not responsible for my treatment and care and
that I should return to my country. They also said I was liable for detention.
I still don’t understand how coming to the UK and having been found
HIV positive had turned me overnight into a criminal who can be detained and
deported at any time. I immediately became angry, tearful, unable to eat and
could not sleep. My original home is Zambia but when I came to the UK, I had
been working for a long spell as a business manager and maths teacher in Botswana,
which had became my home. If I am deported they will send me back, not to
Botswana, but to Zambia, where there is no work and barely any drugs for people
who are HIV positive.
Doctors have told me that coming off HIV medication will lead to a sharp decline
in my health creating a risk of sudden death. This would leave my two kids
without a father. It is very strange that this government won’t let
me remain in the UK where I can be well and work and instead prefers to send
me back to a near-certain death that would leave my children fatherless. Meanwhile
the government is pouring millions into helping the Aids orphans of Africa.
Where is the logic in that?
I now have anxious ruminations about my future and my health; this situation
makes me feel helpless and hopeless. I am extremely fearful of returning to
Zambia. As I write, people there are dying daily of HIV/Aids. In 2003 alone,
89,000 people died and life expectancy dropped to below 40 years. There are
630,000 Aids orphans. I am still only 39, but in Zambia I could face death
within a year without medication.
The only people in Zambia who are saying that HIV drugs are available are
a small pocket of government officials and people who have made a career out
of the limited funding the country has received from organisation like the
Global Fund and World Bank. The people with HIV living there tell a very different
story.
