AIDS Patients in Andhra Pradesh Find Fear at State Hospitals
WARANGAL, India — As M. Balakrishna, a 38-year-old AIDS patient, pushed his gaunt body out of bed with his skinny arms, his knees wobbled as his feet hit the floor. His apartment was covered with spare motorbike parts, relics of a time when he was still able to work as a mechanic.
In December, he entered Mahatma Gandhi Memorial, the largest government hospital in Warangal, a district 90 miles northeast of Hyderabad, to have an abscess removed from his neck. But he left the building untreated because of the results of a routine blood test taken before his surgery.
“They said that that they could not help me because I have AIDS,” Mr. Balakrishna said.
Officials from Mahatma Gandhi Memorial declined to comment on Mr. Balakrishna’s case, but his complaints have been echoed by many others with H.I.V. and AIDS in Andhra Pradesh, which has the highest prevalence in India with 500,000 cases in a population of 85 million, according to a 2012 survey by the World Bank.
Places like Warangal, where truck stops are commonplace and prostitution plays a significant but undocumented role in the local economy, are contributing to the epidemic in the state.
Dr. B. Ranjith, a leading H.I.V. and AIDS researcher in Andhra Pradesh who founded the International AIDS Prevention and Research Organization in 1995, said that the Internet had helped disseminate information about the disease to younger people, helping stem the spread of the disease in Indian cities, but that ignorance still contributed to the high number of new infections in the state.
“I get unbelievable phone calls from people who get my number off the Internet,” Dr. Ranjith said. “‘Hey, I’m getting married next week, but I had unprotected sex with a prostitute last night. Can you check me?’”
That ignorance is also displayed among medical professionals in government hospitals, who are sometimes afraid to touch patients with AIDS and H.I.V. for fear of infection, Dr. Ranjith said, even though the virus that causes AIDS can be transmitted only through unprotected sex, blood transfusions, the sharing of hypodermic needles or from mother to child.
He also said that some state health care plans like arogyasri yojana, which insures lower-income patients for major operations, have clauses that disqualify people with AIDS and H.I.V., making such discrimination part of state policy.
Learn more about India’s hospital crisis and read the rest of Pulitzer Center grantee Michael Hayden’s reporting for The New York Times here. Image by Sami Siva.