Schools at odds with parents over HIV information obligation

Pasifika Editor·NZ Herald·

8 Feb, 2015 04:00 PM3 mins to read

One school said the principal, board of trustees and the school's guidance counsellor should know if a child was carrying HIV. Photo / Thinkstock

Aids Foundation says it is against the law to require families to disclose a child’s status.

Parents of children with HIV are under no legal obligations to inform their child's school - despite several schools having a policy insisting that they do.

About 50 children enrolled in schools have HIV, according to the head of the New Zealand Aids Foundation.

Read more: New Zealanders living with HIV

The Herald conducted an online search of schools after revelations a New Zealand father who had refused to seek treatment for his 9-year-old son, who has HIV, was being taken to court by a district health board.

The board is seeking guardianship of the boy so treatment can be administered. The boy's father has not told him, or his school, that he has HIV.

A number of schools - primary, intermediate and colleges - state on their websites that head staff must be notified of any child with HIV.

One school said the principal, board of trustees and the school's guidance counsellor should know if a child was carrying HIV. Other schools' websites said they would not exclude or discriminate against children with HIV/Aids or any other blood-borne viruses.

But the decision was up to the child's parents, said Aids Foundation executive director Shaun Robinson.

"They can ask, but it's up to the person or the family [of the child] with HIV. Schools cannot discriminate against families on the basis of whether they tell them or not - that's actually illegal under the Human Rights Act.

"There is certainly no legal obligation on people to disclose their HIV status and there's no reason for a school or any other place to require people to declare their HIV status because you don't need to know in order to keep yourself and other people safe.

"Disclosing anybody's HIV status is a very personal matter and having HIV is a very big deal. It's a life-long incurable disease that, if not treated, will be fatal. And that's a very big emotional issue for anybody - adult or child - and their family and friends to come to terms with."

Mr Robinson said the foundation encouraged parents to tell schools once they felt comfortable.

"There's a lot of stigma, ignorance and bigotry around HIV and Aids still - and that's the only reason, really, that people are afraid of telling other people they have HIV.

"HIV - particularly in the case of children - it's a blood-borne virus only. And all schools or playcentres or any other place where children go should have policies and procedures for dealing with any cuts or anything like that regardless of HIV," he said.