Cash crisis triggers more clinic
cutsCash crisis triggers more clinic cuts
Cutbacks at GU and HIV clinics reported to PN this month include a reduction
in opening hours at the Royal Free Hospital’s Marlborough clinic in
London.
While staff at the hospital are working a five-day week, the GU clinic is
now only open to ‘walk-in’ patients three days a week for a total
of just seven and a half hours.
Other clinics have cut back on appointments and GU services in an attempt
to save money as NHS Trust deficits soar. Meanwhile, at the Royal South Hants
Hospital, HIV and GU clinics are not replacing staff who leave. The hospital
has lost HIV and GU staff posts including nurses, health advisers and even
a lead consultant.
And the London borough of Barnet is planning to cut funding for HIV and Aids
services by £45,000 from April.
“Huge advances in medical treatment in recent years mean HIV patients
are living longer
and have healthier lives than ever before,” said Fiona Bulmer, Barnet
councillor.
“Consequently, there has been a fall in demand on social services to
provide care for HIV patients.”
Lisa Power of the Terrence Higgins Trust condemned the cuts.
“Far from HIV being under control, it is the fastest growing serious
health condition in the UK, with 646 people newly diagnosed in central north
London last year alone,” she added.
• Are GU or HIV services being cut in your area? If so, please email
details to: newsdesk@
positivenation.co.uk
Church of Scotland Head visits HIV projects
The
Moderator of General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Rev David
Lacy (pictured third left), visited HIV and Aids projects on home soil last
month following his recent visit to Malawi and Kenya.
Rev Lacy visited Positive Voice, the HIV self-help organisation for people
with HIV in Edinburgh, and later visited the Lothian GU clinic at Lauriston
Place where he toured the building and met staff.
“Highlighting the impact of HIV and Aids on the lives of ordinary people
and their families, both at home and abroad, has been one of the themes of
my moderatorial year,” Rev Lacy said.
Prevention experts deny campaigns jibe
Terrence Higgins Trust hit back this month after criticisms that the growing
HIV positive population in Britain is insufficiently involved in gay men’s
HIV prevention and health promotion work.
HIV positive people are involved and included in all stages of the work of
the national community Aids and HIV prevention strategy (CHAPS), claimed THT’s
head of health promotion, Will Nutland.
His rebuttal followed a number of criticisms from a number of participants
at the CHAPS conference regarding involvement of people living with HIV in
prevention work.
The CHAPS partnership, made up of 30 HIV organisations around the country,
involves HIV prevention and sexual health promotion work with gay and bisexual
men around England and Wales.
The partnership has an annual budget of £1.2 million funded by the Department
of Health (DH) and produces three key national advertising campaigns a year,
he said.
Additionally, the partnership ran a raft of local initiatives and some heavyweight
academic research aimed at cutting the rates of HIV and other STIs among gay
men.
The ninth CHAPS conference, held in Leeds in March, attracted 350 sexual health
workers from NHS and voluntary bodies across the country. Nutland explained
to PN that despite criticism of THT and CHAPS from some quarters, HIV positive
gay men were included at most stages of the campaigns.
HIV positive gay men make up at least 10 per cent of the 16,000 respondents
to the annual Gay Men’s Sex Survey, and take part in focus groups to
evaluate ad campaigns. Some CHAPS workers were also living with the virus.But
Nutland said there were no plans to expand the number of organisations working
on the CHAPS campaigns when the contract came up for renewal next year.
Matthew Hodson, of gay men’s health charity GMFA, agreed. “There’s
very good representation of HIV positive gay men at all levels of CHAPS,”
he said.
PEP proves hard to find as NHS cuts bite
Demand for wider access to PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) is hotting up,
but according to new research, many people are struggling to access the pills.
PEP comprises a month’s supply of a triple cocktail of HIV drugs which,
if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or a sexual incident, can sometimes
prevent sero-conversion in someone exposed to the virus.
Fewer than 12 HIV clinics in the country currently offer PEP and many people
who have tried to
obtain it via GUM clinics or A&E departments have been refused.
But vast overspends on antiretrovirals at UK HIV clinics and lack of local
funding for the
service means there is very little budget left for PEP.
Most HIV clinics are being told to cut their HIV drug bill and some primary
care trusts are already restricting access to the more expensive antiretrovirals.
Next month Robert (not his real name), who was infected with HIV when a condom
split, will seek a judicial review of the government’s failure to publicise
PEP more widely. When he went for treatment at Guy’s Hospital in London,
he wasn’t told about PEP.
“We want a full and public campaign by the government to ensure that
no one of reading age does not know that such a thing is available,”
said Frances Swaine, senior partner at the human rights law firm Leigh Day
& Co, the firm representing Robert. PEP is currently available to all
NHS workers exposed to needle stick injuries, although a 2003 NHS report recommended
it should be made available to all.
The month’s treatment costs around £600, a fraction of the £1
million lifetime cost of treating people with antiretrovirals. The 2005 National
Gay Men’s Sex Survey, carried out by Sigma Research for THT, found increasing
knowledge of PEP among gay men in the UK.
In a sample of 16,000 gay and bisexual men, 31 per cent said they had heard
of PEP compared with 22 per cent in 2004. The proportion of gay men who had
ever sought PEP increased from 1 per cent in 2003 to 1.4 per cent in 2005.
The proportion of those who had taken it rose from 0.6 per cent to 1.2 per
cent in the same period.
In a separate Health Protection Agency study, participants who had tried to
obtain PEP had been turned away. A GU health adviser told one participant
that PEP was not available while another was told: “PEP doesn’t
exist.”
New Public Health Minister, Caroline Flint, assured Liberal MP Paul Burstow,
in a written parliamentary answer in March, that the NHS would make non-occupational
PEP available to all who needed it.
One in five poz gay men take big sex risks
HIV positive gay men take more sexual health risks with casual partners
than with regular ones, according to new research. A questionnaire study of
750 HIV positive gay men in east London found that while the vast majority
are not putting their sexual partners at risk, a significant minority are.
Professor Jonathan Elford of City University presented the research to the
ninth CHAPS conference in Leeds.
Half of the HIV positive men were in relationships; 30 per cent had an HIV
positive partner and 43 per cent had a negative partner.Twenty eight per cent
reported having unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) in the last three months
but the majority (56 per cent) only had unsafe sex with their regular partner.
More worringly, 25 per cent of HIV positive gay men reported unprotected anal
sex with casual partners in the last three months.
Professor Elford said: “More men reported UAI with a casual partner
than with a main partner. One in five HIV positive gay men are reporting unsafe
sex with a risk of HIV transmission but four out of five are not.”
Dr Damien Ridge, also of City University, presented details of his interviews
with HIV positive gay men. A common theme was that unsafe sex was a ‘surprise’
to some of the men and very few intentionally practised unsafe sex.
There was a frequent association between HIV and mental health issues as well
as excessive drink and drug use, Dr Ridge added.
THT on the move
Terrence
Higgins Trust wants to ally fears over its move to new London headquarters.
From 31 March, THT will be based at 314-320 Gray’s Inn Road, London
WC1X 8DP. The main switchboard number will change to 020 7812 1600.The number
for THT Direct will remain 0845 122 1200, open 10am–10pm, Monday to
Friday, and 12pm-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays.
THT are keen to point out that Lighthouse West London will not be sold and
all client services will remain there. The memorial gardens there will stay
in place and not be used for any other purpose.
www.tht.org.uk
news on the side
Positive Nation online: read across the world
Latest figures from UKC chair Bernard Forbes reveal record readership of Positive
Nation’s online web pages, with the number of pages viewed this spring
up 90 per cent on 2002.
Our web readership is now up to 20 times higher than our UK print readership.
PN’s web pages are viewed at all hours of the day and night which points
to a massive global readership, with particularly high traffic from Dutch,
US and Saudi Arabian networks.
An average of 5,000 PN pages are viewed every day, reaching a peak this January
with almost 700,000 requests for information. www.positivenation.co.uk
PN cover star hits out
Care worker Scott Donnelly (formerly Scott Watts), who won a landmark case
against his employers under the Disability Discrimination Act, has hit out
against the ingrained prejudice towards people with HIV.
Scott’s story appeared in PN 119. In an interview with Personnel Today,
he said he was shocked there was still so much prejudice against people with
HIV: “Employers need to support workers with HIV, not rally against
them.”
HIV support group ‘rises from ashes’
An HIV support group in north London will continue despite an arson attack
completely gutting its headquarters.
Speaking for Ourselves, a group for men, women and children, has been meeting
at the Winkfield Resource Centre in Wood Green for 16 years.
“The fire is especially distressing because we have lost part of ourselves,”
said service user Paul.
Among items destroyed is a 10ft banner made for last year’s World Aids
Day. To contact the group, email:
sfourselves@yahoo.co.uk
Tory chair blames own party for Aids deaths
Chair of the Conservative Party, Francis Maude, has admitted that the homophobic
policies of the Thatcher government, including Section 28, were partly responsible
for the death of his brother, Charles, from Aids 12 years ago. In an interview
with gay website PinkNews.co.uk, Maude acknowledged: “In hindsight it
was a mistake. I voted for it, I was a minister.”
Britons are gayer than ever: official
A MORI poll, carried out on behalf of The Observer, points to a more liberal
attitude towards sex in Britain. Around 15 per cent of those surveyed claimed
to have had lesbian or gay ‘sexual contact’. This compares with
a figure of 11 per cent in 2002. It seems that more people are also ‘satisfied’
with their sex lives.
French charity helps bail out NHS
French charity Médecins du Monde is working with asylum seekers in
Tower Hamlets, east London, to help them
use mainstream healthcare services.
Project London does not provide ongoing medical care for long-term conditions
like HIV, but provides primary care health services for asylum seekers. Charity
director Karen McColl said: “The reason we have targeted them [asylum
seekers] is that they don’t understand how the system works. If you
haven’t grown up with the NHS you don’t know that you have to
register with a GP in order to get access to hospital care and there might
be a language barrier.” www.medecinsdumonde.org.uk
Ministers pile pressure on pharmacos
The Department of International Development is seeking further help from the
pharmaceutical industry to address the problem of the 2.3 million children
under the age of five living with HIV/Aids.
Only five per cent are receiving the medication they need, partly because
of the high cost of children’s antiretrovirals.
Germany promotes World Cup condoms
“Clearly visible and readable” posters are soon to appear in brothels
throughout the southern German state of Bavaria. They will remind World Cup
visitors who visit prostitutes of the regulation which requires them to use
condoms.
Life for rape and murder of TAC activist
Lorna Mlosana, a trainee educator with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
of South Africa was raped in the toilet of a bar near Cape Town. Her attacker,
Ncedile Ntumbukane, then beat her to death when she told him she was HIV positive.
He is now serving a life sentence.
US will allow HIV positive visitors to Gay Games
The US government has announced that HIV positive participants and visitors
to the Chicago Gay Games 2006
will be issued with a ‘federal blanket waiver’ to allow them to
visit the country.
HIV positive people are advised to apply in advance for a single entry B-2
travel visa, valid from 8 to 28 July, from their local US consulate. It will
be issued on a special form instead of being permanently placed in your passport.
www.gaygames.com, www.gaygameschicafo.org
