A third of those infected with HIV in Portugal have been discriminated against in health services, and have shunned by their families and work colleagues.
One in three people infected with HIV is reported also to have been discriminated against in access to health care in the last year, according to a disturbing study examining the stigma associated with HIV in Portugal and the attitude of those in social contact with the sufferer.
The 'Stigma Index Portugal’ interviewed 1,474 people infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
"The objective of the study was to identify and characterise a problem that we all talk about and all say it needs resolving, but we did not know until now the consequences for sufferers in Portugal - discrimination because of living with HIV/AIDS,” according to the coordinator of the study and director of ‘Anti-Discrimination HIV/AIDS.’
On the conclusions of the study, Peter Silverio Marques said he was "surprised" with "the discrimination from health services professionals" thinking that this degree of discrimination would have been more evident in the sufferer’s workplace.
Over the past 12 months, health care such as dentistry was denied to 23% of respondents, with problems too from the family planning service and in the area of sexual and reproductive health.
In health there is "a double standard," said Pedro Silverio Marques, explaining: "in the treatment of infectious diseases, in general, people are treated without discrimination, but when they have to move on to other services, it is a disgrace.”
Some medical students have participated in anti-discrimination training, "but the medical profession in general, believes it knows everything and has nothing to learn from anyone."
Pedro Silverio Marques hopes that the results of the study will encourage health care professionals and the Heath Directorate to look at this problem in a much more serious way and to design anti-discrimination programmes for medical students, clinicians and nurses to end discrimination which is shameful for the patients and shameful for the health service."
The findings show also that half of the respondents had been forced to move house and had lost a job opportunities.
Marques said that there are three "major areas to attack: health services, access to housing and the workplace.
The study is an international project coordinated by Portugal’s Anti-Discrimination Centre.
The interviews were based in hospitals and medical centres in Lisbon, Porto, and Faro.
