Top union supports HIV positive
nurses
An
HIV positive nurse told delegates at a major nursing conference how he successfully
challenged discrimination from his employers after his diagnosis.
Former PN cover boy (PN114) Christopher Collister, diagnosed while still a
student nurse, told how he was sent home from his post in an HIV outpatient
clinic because his employers claimed he posed a risk to himself and patients.
Speaking at the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) annual conference in
April, Collister joked: “I don’t know what exactly they thought
I was doing to patients.”
Now a nurse manager, Collister said he was inspired to be open about his HIV
status by Nelson Mandela’s speech at the 2002 AIDS Conference in Barcelona.
Mandela had urged HIV positive health care workers to stand up and be counted.
Collister’s presentation had an impact on his audience as three nurses
at the event also came out as HIV positive.
Speaking at a special meeting organised by the college’s sexual health
forum and UKC, sexual health nurse Jason Warriner, chair of the RCN congress,
asked the why nurses with HIV should be treated differently from those with
asthma or diabetes.
Warriner pledged the RCN would support and counsel any members discriminated
against because of their HIV status.
“A nurse living with HIV can provide care to patients and may be in
a position to challenge stigma and discrimination.
“This event enabled two leading organisations to work together to raise
the profile of nurses living and working with HIV,” he said.
The RCN president’s charity for 2007/8 is the Malawi based Solidarity
Fund that supports HIV positive nurses and helps them stay in their posts.
Michael Laffan
• www.rcn.org.uk
Scots
up ante in HIV prevention
Gay Men’s Health in Edinburgh has launched a dramatic safer sex campaign
aimed at reducing HIV infection rates among gay men.
One in 25 gay or bisexual men in the Lothian area now has HIV and Gay Men’s
Health say HIV is most commonly passed on through sex without condoms.
• wwwhivcomebacktour.co.uk
Third of poz gay men ‘have unsafe sex’
More than one in three HIV positive gay men say they have unprotected sex,
a community study in Manchester, Brighton and London has revealed.
The study, A Tale of Three Cities, involved 2,600 men at 90 gay venues between
2003 and 2004.
Almost one in five (18 per cent) HIV negative men in the sample and over a
third (37 per cent) of HIV positive men said they had had unprotected sex
with more than one partner in the past year.
Oral swabs revealed the rate of HIV infection among the sample was 14 per
cent in Brighton, 12 per cent in London and 8.6 per cent in Manchester.
And one in three of the HIV positive men did not know they had the virus.
The authors of the research, published in the online version of the journal
Sexually Transmitted Infections, said despite availability of HIV treatments
and a national policy to promote HIV testing, a significant proportion of
HIV infection remains undiagnosed.
“We have to renew our efforts to ensure people with HIV get early diagnosis,”
said lead researcher Dr Danielle Mercey, of University College London.
“It is only by early diagnosis and safer sex that we will reduce the
rate of HIV.”
“Voluntary confidential HIV testing should be promoted in all three
cities to reduce the proportion of men undiagnosed,” the study said
HIV infections in Britain topped 7,500 in 2005 and a third of these were among
gay men. But safer sex campaigns aimed at HIV positive gay men are rare in
England.
Prison inmates at 15 times more risk of
getting HIV
UK
prisons are a breeding ground for HIV and hepatitis, and action to prevent
further infections cannot wait, according to a leading prison reformer.
Latest figures show inmates are between 15 and 20 times more likely to be
infected with HIV and hep C respectively than the rest of the population.
Dame Ruth Runciman, deputy chair of the Prison Reform Trust (PRT), issued
her warning at the launch of a new framework, Tackling Blood Borne Viruses
in Prison.
The framework produced by PRT and National Aids Trust (NAT) highlights how
the best work already happening in some prisons can be expanded to others.
It also sets out the key measures needed to prevent further transmission,
treat those already infected and promote wider public health and safety.
Runciman said an earlier study by the PRT and NAT, HIV and Hepatitis in UK
Prisons, painted a “disappointing and disturbing” picture.
“One third of prisons surveyed had no HIV policy, one in five had no
hep C plan and half didn’t have a sexual health programme,” she
said.
Although HIV testing was available in almost all prisons, the waiting time
for a test can vary from one day to four months, she added.
The guidelines were published as the Scottish Prison Service announced plans
for a pilot needle exchange programme at Aberdeen Prison later this year.
During 2007, the English and Welsh Prison Service will introduce disinfecting
tablets for cleaning needles and syringes in all their prisons following trials
at Shrewsbury Prison.
Nicola Douglas, author of the NAT framework, said the time was right for a
needle exchange pilot in English and Welsh prisons.
“We need joined-up thinking on harm reduction. Condoms are available
in some prisons but not in others.”
The Health Protection Agency has projected that if 50 per cent of new prisoners
were vaccinated, acute hep B infections among the intravenous drug users could
be slashed by 80 per cent over 12 years. Chris O’Connor
• www.nat.org.uk/document/255
words
“The elimination of TB is not such an impossible target.”
Dr Kevin de Cock, World Health Organisation
“HIV mortality and morbidity have declined exponentially since HAART.”
Prof Lorraine Sherr, Royal Free and University College
“Suddenly the pipeline is overflowing with new drugs. And
these drugs get harder and harder to pronounce.”
Prof Dan Kuritzkes, Brigham Hospital, Massachusetts
“We now keep supermarket vouchers at the clinic for our
women stuck in the asylum process.”
Dr Jane Anderson, Homerton Hospital, London
“These drugs [HAART] are toxic mitochondrial poisons.”
Prof Jeanne Bell, University of Edinburgh
“Nearly 60 per cent of patients start HAART in the UK with a CD4 count
of less than 200.”
Prof Margaret Johnson, BHIVA chair
“I’m getting such good treatment at the Royal Free
I feel my doctors are condemning me to a mundane death.”
Robert Fieldhouse, PN treatments editor
