by Mary Phillips, HIV/AIDS Activist, Pres. JMH CAB
Confidentiality
What does this word mean? Well to me it means keep it between you and me; it means if you find out something about me, please don’t tell the world. In other words, keep it quiet please.
Why do I need confidentiality in my life? Well, with all the judgment the goes on out there; regarding my being an innocent victim or one of those who deserve what they got, I don’t have the energy to deal with all the hate and rejection that can come with an HIV diagnosis.
I cringe, every time I remember, the last time I walked into my Walgreen’s pharmacy and the pharmacist says out loud in front of everyone, “We don’t have your Norvir, your HIV thing!” Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked right at me. A lot of people have dropped taking their medicines, and stopped going to the drugstore primarily because of that kind of thing.
The stigmatization caused by the insensitive and uneducated comments of health care professionals and my “fears” is unbearable. These professionals should know better about how to handle HIV/AIDS issues with more tact.
People that do not understand and are uneducated about the AIDS virus can be very mean. It’s important that people respect your right to privacy. The issues of confidentiality are relevant even if you want to be open about your AIDS diagnosis.
I remember going into the
These are supposed to be professional people caring for us, and I don’t think these people are taught confidentiality, they think that confidentiality is hiding the charts so that no one can see, but it’s more than that. It also refers to “loose talking”, sometimes these nurses are in the hall way right in front of the patient’s room and the patients inside the room can hear them talking.
Why is it, that when you work a delicate job as nursing, you have to do those kind of things? During that same stay, I overheard as I passed by the nursing station, “Why didn’t they put her in the isolation room, she does not belong on the floor?” I really was floored by that comment; an isolation room is for people that have an easily transmitted infectious diseases. AIDS is not one of those, we breathing the same air and lying in a bed next to somebody is not a problem.
I was being stigmatized right there in the hospital, and it does not matter what color you are, people think that if you have HIV; your dirty, you got it, your this, and your that….because they don’t care how you got it, you have it, that’s all they want to know and that is all that matters. I think that if I was Hispanic or White they would have treated me the same way.
There are some basic things that are causative of these problems; the bad feelings that are carried over, the way people feel about IV drug users, homosexuals, and sex workers, fear of transmission issues, and lack of education. You would think that in an institution like a hospital there would be good ongoing education about HIV and AIDS, confidentiality and the laws in Florida, cultural competency and how to handle yourself with your patients, how to communicate with your clients, and patient relations.
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