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AIDS Protesters Beaten, say villagers
A woman with AIDS was allegedly beaten by four policemen when she tried to lodge a complaint with a World Health Organization delegation visiting Henan. Yang Nidan’s hasband said his 41-year-old wife was in a weak condition before the beating, but now her doctor feared she would be dying. “She was hurt badly and lost a lot of blood. She needs a transfusion, which I can’t afford,”said Liu Baoling. Ms.Yang was one of about 100 HIV/AIDS patients who went to a hospital in the village of Wenlou in Henan on May 18 to voice their grievances to a visiting WHO and Health Ministry delegations. The villagers say they are being left to die by a government that is responsible for their illness but has turned its back on them. The patients contracted HIV in the 1990s after donating blood at unhygienic state-run clinics. They claim that doctors at the local hospital will not treat them, staff will not touch them and they are only ever offered basic cough and cold medicines, which are frequently unavailable. But 200 local officials and police officers, many dressed in plain clothes, prevented the patients getting within 100 metres of the hospital while the delegation was visiting last month, several villagers told the South China Morning Post. Ms. Yang protested and was hauled into a police car and beaten, Mr. Liu said. When she asked what law she had broke, the police said: “Do you want us to kick you dead” We are the dogs fed by the government, so we will bite whoever the officials tell us to,” her husband said. He said Ms. Yang was detained for several hours until the delegation had left the village. He also said that officials selected some “obedient” HIV/AIDS patients to give the WHO and Health Ministry visitors a distorted picture of the situation by saying they were all adequately cared for. They also told them there were 306 HIV/AIDS carriers in the village, although the real figure is probably twice that, Mr.Hu Jia, director of the Bejing-based Aizhixing Aids Research and Education Institute said. One of the patients, a 37-year-old mother of young twin girls, contracted AIDS after donating blood in the village in 1997, like many of her neighbors. “The local government was advertising it everywhere at the time, saying it was a good way to earn money,” the woman said. She gave 800cc of blood on three separate occasions, after which medical staff reinjected 400cc of pooled blood from a container. She was paid45 yuan [HK$42] each time. “So I made 135 yuan in total, but I got AIDS,” she said. The woman was one of the many AIDS carriers who were not allowed to meet the WHO experts on their visit last month. “The government just wants to hide us away. They treat us like grass, just ready to be cut down,” she said. [Source: South China Morning Post, Tuesday, June 2, 2003] posted by Prawate on Monday, June 09, 2003 |
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