HIV sufferers trapped in poverty

By ANGELA GREGORY

Many New Zealanders living with the HIV virus or Aids are impoverished and find it difficult to pay for their medical treatment.

This was contained in a landmark report on 226 HIV-infected people, about a quarter of all those in New Zealand, released in Auckland yesterday.

Respondents to a transtasman research project included 171 men, 54 women, and one transgender person. In the total sample, 56 per cent were gay men and 15 per cent heterosexual men.

Two-thirds were European and almost a sixth were African.

The report said close to one in five of those surveyed was living in poverty.

New Zealand does not have an officially recognised poverty line.

But a widely used measurement puts it at 60 per cent of the median income, with further adjustments made for living arrangements and dependent children.

The research showed that of those who lived below the poverty line, nearly half found it difficult to pay for medical services and more than 12 per cent found it equally difficult to meet co-payments for their medication.

A substantial number also found it difficult to afford the basics of life.

"It is clear that substantial social action is needed to ensure people living with HIV in New Zealand are not systematically denied the quality of life other citizens could rightly expect," the report said.

In what was the first big examination of the health and social experiences of HIV-positive New Zealanders, the report found that nearly half of those surveyed were living on a pension or benefit.

Lead researcher Dr Jeffrey Grierson said the poverty levels among those surveyed was unacceptable.

He was also worried by the subtle discrimination reported by 20 per cent of respondents at medical centres, like being put at the end of the patient lists.

"That implies those centres are not dealing with infection control adequately."

The report was presented in front of Prime Minister Helen Clark and representatives of the groups involved, including the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, of La Trobe University in Melbourne, the New Zealand Aids Foundation, Body Positive (NZ), Positive Women and the Refugee Health Education Programme.

Helen Clark acknowledged that many of those surveyed were on a benefit, which was "not known as luxury living", and 70 per cent of the respondents had to deal with someone close to them dying of Aids.

But she thought it positive that many of those infected with HIV felt in good health, and she was encouraged that they appeared to work well with their doctors.

Nikki Denholm, of the Refugee Health Education Programme, said African refugees were shocked when they discovered they had HIV.

About 15 per cent of HIV-infected New Zealanders were African and most felt desolate in carrying a huge burden of shame, she said.

"It is a real stigma in Africa, people get stoned to death."

The report said the 20 female and 13 male refugees surveyed were almost all heterosexual.

About 60 per cent did not know anyone else with HIV and almost all spent no time with other HIV-positive people.

Relatively few of the refugees had told other people of their status.

A founding trustee of the Aids Foundation, Bruce Kilmister, told the Weekend Herald that his diagnosis with HIV 20 years ago was at the time an automatic death sentence.

But Mr Kilmister, 51, said he had gone out of his way to try every new drug that came out.

"I chucked everything down my throat. I now expect to live to a ripe old age."

nzherald.co.nz/health