Sunday 11 January 2009

The Power of Positive Thinking

Yesterday I met with Michael (author of No Positive News) together with 'Nuraini'. I'd met her on a couple of earlier occasions, first when she was just thinking of starting therapy. And she has been in contact by SMS several times since, usually because of problems of drug supply. She was happy to note that, despite all these problems, her viral load had become undetectable about a month after starting therapy, and had remained that way at subsequent tests. Let's hope it stays that way.

Nuraini had put together some ideas for advertisements based upon her experience, with hope that perhaps they might encourage change in the way that people with HIV are treated (in all the meanings of that word) within the health care system here. She has met up with a fellow from an advertising agency here, who also joined us yesterday. Together they have produced a number of drafts, which she had sent to me a month or so back,

As I have noted earlier, I am not sure of the best approach in attempting to address these problems. Some of Nuraini's drafts are very explicit in referring to corruption in the health care system, and to the acknowledged practice (not only in Indonesia) of doctors receiving 'hand-outs' from pharmaceutical companies. We agreed yesterday that these should be 'put on the back burner' for the moment, and perhaps might be more effective if they did not explicitly refer to the situation in Indonesia; although the problem is well-known here, it is much more widely spread.

But we agreed that a series of drafts, under the general heading of "HIV, It's Not the End", offer a much more positive and probably useful approach, at least in the short term. One has the message "With appropriate care and treatment, your baby will be born uninfected". This is certainly a message we need to get across (perhaps - I don't know - acknowledging that 1-2% of babies born to HIV-positive mothers may still be infected), since even many activists with HIV are not clear about this. In an attempt to address the still not uncommon situation that people with HIV are shunned by their families, and not even allowed to hold their own babies, another has the message "You can still kiss your wife goodbye, kiss your children goodnight, and no need to disinfect."

We'll need to perfect these, and ensure that the message is clear, but they do offer an amazing start. Hopefully you'll be seeing some of them over the next few months.

Babé

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ya. sure.
Lots of Gratitude for you