regulars - issue 83

xavier - letter from Catalonia

Positive Nation

illustration by Shenton

page 2 of 3

1 / 2 / 3

home

contents of issue 83
back issues
the gazette
recipes
small ads
contacting us
weblinks

This network of community workers is called Red 2002 and has been constructed over the past three years. Different initiatives have grown out of this collaboration: a treatment activist forum, working groups on prevention, harm reduction, women, infancy and adolescents.
The repercussions of this group's declarations and campaigning in the local media during the conference had not been seen before in Spain. Its voice was heard widely and grabbed headlines. The local HIV community became more visible than

ever before.
This must not stop here. This country, after all that happened at the conference, must stop wallowing in complacency. There is a lot to be done, both at home and outside.
You see, here, in Barcelona, we try to be very European. There is a great desire to recover from 40 years of dictatorship as quickly and efficiently as possible.
But the recent advances and improvements, the evident 'renaissance' of the city in ways ranging from huge urban improvements to designer shops, sometimes stop us seeing the important things that have fallen by the wayside. The presence and the suffering of many people with HIV is one of these.
Spain is a country that presumes to offer high standards of care and treatment. It maintains that it has a free and universal health system. But it's also a country that does not dispense condoms for free or even at reduced cost, that does not have an active political agenda for the reduction of stigma; and that does not offer much at all in the way of economic assistance for people living with HIV.

xavier

Xavier Fanquet

So, while the state spends large sums of money on pharmaceutical invoices and hospital bills, the epidemic continues to expand.

previous pagenext page