INTERVIEW: ‘Adamawa State Govt Agencies Stigmatize People Living With HIV/AIDS’

Dishon Pwaboyedi, a primary school teacher is the  State Secretary of Network of People Living With HIV and AIDS in Nigeria, Adamawa State chapter. He spoke to THE WHISTLER on the challenges facing people living with HIV/AIDS in the state.

Excerpts:

Are HIV Patients In The State Still Being Stigmatised? If Yes, How And How Do You Cope?

It was in 2004 that I got diagnosed with HIV. The stigma is still there,  we cannot say it has been cleared, rather, it has metamorphosed into a different form of stigma. In the community, the rate of stigma has reduced because we are part of it and have helped in creating awareness. But the IPs – Implementary Partners in the state, still stigmatise our people.

According to the national policy on HIV, you have to carry along People Living With HIV and AIDS in implementing any HIV activity in Nigeria, but right now, if you go round these facilities where our people collect drugs, you hardly find two-third of these People Living With HIV as ad hoc members working there.

Let me give you an example with Numan Local Government to be precise. They have not less than 30 ad hoc staff, but what we have as People Living With HIV are just about 3 from what I know.

So, when they first assumed the work in Numan, they succeeded with the VIP called ‘Japigbo’. So, when they came, they dropped some of us and began to bring in their brothers and sisters.

So that is why at the early stage, I said stigma has now been metamorphosed into different forms.

First, HIV is known as an ailment, then later the issue of stigma, but now it has become a money-making-venture or a firm that gives people money.

You now find out that you must have certain qualifications before you work as a Case Manager. But all the same, it’s for them to clear out HIV people in the programme. Meanwhile, these HIV people have been working there. They met them and are now substituting them with their brothers and sisters, family and friends in the name of they don’t have the qualifications.

At first it was about who is going to work there. People were scared to work there, then it became a policy that people with HIV must have a good percentage working in those facilities, but now it has turned to a different thing.

Secondly, I have to be certain and honest with you that even the government is involved in it.

The government has an organisation that controls HIV. Let me use NACA as an example, the national body has an office called NACA – National Action Committee on AIDS, with a structural building on ground where it employs doctors and professors to work. But the people who happen to be the bridges for which NACA has been formed do not have an office, whereas NACA has. We are deeply touched by that.

We have been roaming about for offices from here and there, in fact, now, we don’t have an office where you will locate us. Currently in Adamawa, we are perching under a support group that happens to own an office, that is Spring of Hope. But NEPWHAN which happens to be the mother umbrella is perching under this support group. You see, it doesn’t speak well.

We expect the government to open offices for us too to work, this can help complement the work the government is doing too.

Again, we are not even mobile to go round to see for example if you say you have cases in Michika, Madagali, to monitor and see these cases ourselves. We only hear the cases. Sometimes talking on phones doesn’t speak well. We are just there like that, like figure heads!

Do Other States Experience This Same Problem Or Only In Adamawa State?

A good number of people in the North experience all these too, since I’m from the north, I can speak about the North, but cannot speak about other places I hardly know. The only thing I know the government usually does sometimes is give them offices within SACA – State Agency for Control of AIDS.

But there’s one thing we don’t like there, once you are under somebody directly, physically like that, you will not speak for your people, you will only answer yes sir to that person. If we have an office independently it will be better.

Among The People Living With HIV In Adamawa, How Many Are Your Members?

The people living with HIV here in the state are in groups called support groups. Support groups give birth to what is known as NEPWHAN – Network of People Living With HIV and AIDS in Nigeria.

We have 47 groups across the 21 local governments in the state. For a support group to be recognised and registered, we must have at least 25 persons. But there are bigger support groups that have 100 persons, like the support group in Demsa, which has over hundred. Spring of Hope has over hundred members too.We have Living With Hope, around Michika, which has about 89-90 persons.

How Many Of Your Members Are Married? Did They Marry HIV Positive Patients?

You know HIV is into two phases; there are whole that identify themselves and open up their statuses, so they form all these support groups. And there are other ones that do not open up with their status, so sometimes they like a kind of VIP treatment. Those are the ones we are actually having  headache with. They sometimes hardly make their statuses known to their spouses, so they end up marrying negative persons.

So, by doing so, assurance is really compromised because they are hiding their status. But in support groups, we marry our fellow HIV.

Like me now, I’m a married man. My partner is positive and we have four children. One is HIV positive, three negative.

We have a little forum for connecting people for marriage, and we have connected about 20 marriages. In my own support group, we have about 10 marriages. We also have adolescents in the group.

In our support groups there are no people that married positive and negative, rather, some of them that refused to open up, often ask us to look for wives for them in our support groups. They will not show up for our activities, but will ask us to find partners for them. So, the report I have, the support groups have never married any negative person.

In each of these groups, 7 out of 10 married members marry their fellow PLHiV from the groups while the remaining 3 are couples that joined support groups as a couple.