During the early years of HIV/AIDS people living with HIV were treated in almost the same way lepers were treated during Biblical times and beyond.
HIV positive people were discriminated against by even those so close to them which is one of the reasons why HIV has remained one of the most feared health conditions after Covid 19. In this week’s article I shall dwell more on how families with members living with HIV should live.
Charity begins at home so goes the old adage. The family should lead in everything that revolves around humanity because every person starts life in a family. The love we receive in our families is the fuel that makes us enjoy or hate life. The way we treat each other as family members in times of good or ill health will either build or break us depending on how those around us treat us. I shall base most of my discussion on my personal experiences as a person who has lived with HIV in a very compassionate family set up .
My family has stood with me from the time I was ill in hospital in 1999 to the present time. My wife was the first to make sure that I took my medication religiously since the time we were taking Cotrimoxazole tablets around 2004 to 2010 when I began ART therapy. My two children later took over and they would literally bring my tablets to me on time daily. As I write now my two children are now adults and we are living with my grandchildren from my 36 year old son who have taken over the responsibility of making sure that their grandparents take their medication timeously. They learn about HIV/AIDs at school and it’s not a secret that we their grandparents are both HIV positive and need ARVs to remain healthy.
The need for every member of a family where a member or some members of that family are positive cannot be over emphasized. Those members living with HIV should make it their responsibility to inform the rest of the family about their HIV positive statuses. Talking about HIV in my family is as easy as talking about flue or malaria because we have demystified HIV and made it just like any other common ailment.
There are many advantages of treating HIV/AIDS just like any other common ailment at family level. One of the advantages is it makes life very easy for those family members living with HIV to feel accepted. It removes stigma and discrimination at family level as it cascades to community, national level and beyond. Greater effort should be made by all stakeholders to create an enabling environment that will remove all obstacles that still make it difficult for many HIV positive people disclose their statuses.
The current situation is still not user friendly for people living with HIV to disclose their statuses freely. A lot of people living with still silently die of AIDs fearing humiliation and discrimination from both close family members and the community.
Government through the ministry of health and child care should create structures beginning at village level going up that will encourage families to love and support those amongst them cope with HIV. These structures will also help encourage those getting into new sexual and marital relationships understand the importance of getting tested first before engaging in intimacy. When our HIV positive daughter was getting married I asked her inlaws whether they were aware that my daughter was HIV positive. I was very happy to hear that she had told them that she was HIV positive and that their son was also HIV positive. I am happy to say that as I write my daughter is mother to 3 boys all HIV negative.
These are among some of the advantages of living positively with HIV.
Piason Maringwa*
+263774322043*
