Dress Circle raises funds for the UKCSaturday 7 June was party day at the world famous Covent Garden showbiz shop Dress Circle, celebrating the first anniversary of a successful partnership with one of London's hottest cabaret companies, Trilby Productions. Denise Van Outen, rising star of the musicals 'Chicago' and 'Tell Me On a Sunday' (playing now at the Gielgud Theatre) joined the fundraising event for a special autograph session and photos with her fans. Denise, needless to say, drew ticket number 69 in the prize draw! The event raised over £500 for the UKC (UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS). Jorge Balça |
The UK's sexual health service is in crisis, the House of Commons Health Select Committee has warned.
The committee of MPs cited soaring rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in this country, overburdened GUM clinics and widespread ignorance about sexual health among the general public, particularly in young people.
In a damning 120-page report, the committee highlighted an 87 per cent increase in new cases of gonorrhoea, a 108 per cent increase in chlamydia and a record 486 per cent increase in the number of new cases of syphilis over the past six years.
Meanwhile, the figures for UK HIV infections last year are expected to show at least 6,600 new cases, up 26 per cent on 2001.
Lack of NHS funding for sexual health services has left GUM clinics unable to cope, the MPs say, with centres understaffed, hundreds of patients being turned away and waiting times for appointments as long as six weeks at some clinics, despite a government target that each patient be seen within 48 hours.
David Hinchliffe, chairman of the Select Committee, said: "The whole sexual health service is a shambles. Professionals are crying out for help and not getting it. I do not use the word crisis lightly, but I think we have a crisis here."
The MPs also recommend teenage school advice clinics to tackle what's described as "Britain's Benny Hill attitude to sex."
Reacting to the committee report, public health minister Hazel Blears said the government recognised the significance of the problems, but said: "Reducing STIs is a complex issue that will involve people changing their behaviour."
But the minister was pessimistic about the possibility of an easy solution to the problems: "There is no quick fix but the NHS is working to reverse the upward trends in infections, tackling inequalities and modernising services."
Professor Allan Templeton, of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists, welcomed the MPs' proposal that sex education be included in the National Curriculum in all British schools.
"It is vitally important that sexual health now features as a major priority in this country," he said.
Derek Bodell, chief executive of the National Aids Trust, welcomed the report but said the government must address the financing and staffing of sexual health services immediately.
"The recommendations of the committee have all the right ingredients, but they need more muscle, politically, to ensure that they are implemented," Mr Bodell added.
Sir Elton John wins more friends in Hampstead
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 photo: Simon Williams |
At a protest in May, the Grim Reaper led a merry dance from Westminster to No 10 Downing Street. He was followed by a coffin carried by eight pall bearers disguised as each of the G8 leaders.
On arrival at Parliament Square, the procession joined UK Aids activists and demonstrators waving banners and shouting: "What Do We Want?" "Tony Blair, Pay Up Now!" and "Fund the Fund!"
Three of the demonstrators were escorted to the entrance of 10 Downing Street and delivered a letter of 'thanks' from Death to Tony Blair for failing to keep his promise to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria.
Caribbean men are also four times more likely than average to get gonorrhoea and women three times more likely.
 (L to R) Seema Yasmin (Teen Spirit), Carlos Corredor (NAZ) and Thandi Haruperi (UKC) delivering the petition letter at No. 10 |
In the petition letter, UK-based HIV organisations and other charities expressed their disgust at leaders of the world's richest countries breaking their promise to fund the Global Fund adequately, thereby allowing Aids deaths to escalate in developing countries.
The letter also demands that Tony Blair find a fair share for the UK - an extra £32million - to support the Fund when grant decisions are issued for round three of funding in October this year. The action preceded the crucial G8 summit meeting on 3 June where bids for round three of the Global Fund were to be decided. To date, the Global Fund has granted US$1.4 billion, in two rounds of giving, to 150 programmes in 92 countries. Rose de Freitas
To find out more about the Fund the Fund campaign, visit: www.fundthefund.org
Whipps Cross Hospital, in east London, has denied being forced to cap the number of patients receiving HIV combination therapies.
The Wanstead and Woodford Guardian said that to make ends meet, the hospital would have to cap the number of patients receiving anti-HIV combination therapies as well as make cutbacks in new cancer services and services for disabled people.
A report by Waltham Forest Council highlighted a seven-week wait for appointments for sexual health treatment at the hospital.
But a hospital spokesman refuted this and said: "Whipps Cross Hospital has not and will not deny treatment to any patient who needs it."
The number of patients using the hospital's STI clinic has trebled over the last four years and there have been reports of patients with HIV crossing the capital for better service at other hospitals.
The hospital only has one sexual health consultant and should have at least four.
Waltham Forest Council set up a special scrutiny committee to investigate health services in the borough which chairman and local councillor Simon Wright says are rarely championed.
Councillor Wright said: "We were impressed by the service at Whipps Cross Hospital but we are concerned that demand for services exceeds capacity and that this has led to long waits.
"We would like to see the local sexual health services given a high priority and decent funding so that the service can meet the demand."
Meanwhile, reports are reaching Positive Nation that hospitals in the Manchester area are also restricting the number of patients receiving HIV treatments and we are hearing that some African patients are being denied anti-retroviral medications at some centres in the South East.
The Terrence Higgins Trust say that they have intervened on behalf of a number of patients who were initially denied HIV treatments but they have so far managed to secure decent treatment in each case.
We ask readers to inform the PN Newsdesk about any similar situations in their local areas.
Sir Elton John opened a new patients' garden in the Ian Charleson Day Centre at north London's Royal Free Hospital earlier this month. The garden was created in memory of Tim Lunn and Barry Prothero, partners and patients at the hospital who died within months of each other in 1996. Pictured with Sir Elton at the opening is theatre and film director Anthony Minghella, a close friend of Tim and Barry, who raised funds for the garden through a gala performance in 1997 of his Oscar winning movie 'The English Patient'.