Reflection of utter indifference : ART and professional ethics
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 26, 2012 -

Yet another instance of the public having to bear the brunt of an inefficient, corrupt and indifferent Government and its equally inefficient and selfish employees.

In as much as the authority of Manipur AIDS Control Society should be put on the docks for refusing to adhere to the revised pay scale of all contract employees of State AIDS Control Societies worked out by the National AIDS Control Organisation, the employees too need to be told in no uncertain terms that they have absolutely no justification in jeopardising the lives of over ten thousand people who are on ART support.

Thanks to the intervention of some NGOs and civil society organisations, including human rights groups, the cease work strike launched by the employees of MACS has been relaxed for five days, but this is not the solution. Anti-Retro Therapy or ART treatment, in short, is not only about administering some medicines to people living with HIV/AIDS but also carries a strong social message.

In many ways, ART treatment is a statement that HIV is like any other disease which can be treated and thus impact on how society views people living with HIV/AIDS.

It is this message which has been conveyed and sought to be conveyed in the backdrop of the social stigma that this ailment carries as well in the light of the numerous cases of discrimination that HIV positive people and their children have had to face in a society blinded by prejudices, misinformation and myopia.

HIV is therefore not only an ailment that poses a challenge to medical science but also to society as a whole. In short it is also a question of human rights, entailing the people living with HIV/ADIS the right to live as dignified members of society.

To get a better understanding of the gravity of the present situation, kicked up by the cease work strike launched by staff and employees of MACS, an overall view of the HIV/AIDS scenario in Manipur is in line.

Manipur is one amongst the seven States of the country with a high prevalence rate, the others being Nagaland, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, Maharastra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

As things stand today, HIV in Manipur is something not confined to the Intravenous Drug Users but has spread to the general population, through sexual contacts and otherwise.

Fittingly ART treatment in Manipur started on World AIDS Day, December 1 in 2004 and MACS has been the primary player in dispensing ART medicines at centres located across the districts, with the Medicines Sans Frontiers doing their bit at Churachandpur district.

In as much the impact of HIV/AIDS carries a social connotation, ART treatment, like any other line of treatment, also entails certain regimen, such as the dosage, timing and frequency.

A disruption in the medication process for four days, that is from March 21 to March 24 therefore means jeopardising the lives of thousands of people who are on ART treatment.

Such is the characteristics of the HIV virus that a change in the timing, dosage or frequency of its administration may render the treatment redundant and make the second line of treatment mandatory.

For the record, Manipur presently does not have free ARV drugs for the second line treatment and in many ways, the cease work strike, if it resumes again, may just amount to snatching the best available option of life to quite a large number of people.

This is where the gravity of the situation becomes all that more glaring. The indifference of the Government, the failure of the authority concerned to act on time is an extension of the all round institutional collapse that Manipur has come to be identified with all these years.

MACS should explain why it has failed to adopt the pay scale advised by NACO all these years, from 2009, to be precise. The employees too should be questioned on their professionalism.

It is not for nothing that there is the universal understanding of the term 'Professional ethics' and this is where the question arises why the life of people living with HIV/AIDS should be jeopardised on an issue which concerns the employees and the authority.

An extension of the general malaise that has been afflicting Manipur for too long, a sort of a social norm where the public have had to be the scapegoat every time an issue erupts.

Let the employees demand their right dues, but at the same time let it be clear that using pressure tactics by putting the lives of thousands of people living with HIV on the scaffold is just not acceptable.