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A
journalist's heartbreak: HIV-Positive Zimbabweans cannot access
the ARVs they desperately need
Constance Manika, The Women's International Perspective
November 12, 2007
http://www.thewip.net/contributors/2007/11/a_journalists_heartbreak_hivpo.html
I am always left cursing
and depressed and angry after covering assignments where I meet
with People Living With HIV and AIDS. (We call them PLWAs here.)
Having covered HIV and AIDS issues for the past five and half years,
I have grown to know many of the faces in the AIDS community.
I know almost everyone's
"story", including deep secrets they say they never have
and never will tell anyone else. I am invited to their private family
parties; they ask me to cover their support group functions. They
even phone to update me on their health; when they are too sick
to call me, they ask their relatives or spouses to do it on their
behalf.
I always listen, comfort,
offer advice and help where I can; I have become very close to many
people affected by AIDS. I appreciate the fact that they trust me
that much. And I love talking to them. But when these " friends"
confide in me, they usually have problems and depressing news.
Often I am left stressed,
because I cannot help. This special community of friends all know
I have no financial means to help them, being the underpaid journalist
that I am. They know that I, too, struggle to make ends meet in
this harsh economic environment that is Zimbabwe.
What is my life like?
I have chosen to work for the so-called independent press. Supposedly
I am playing a very crucial part in writing the history of Zimbabwe.
Yet I live on less than $0.43 USD a day! Here is how I calculate
this $0.43 USD cents per day: it's very simple. I currently earn
a salary of Z$13 million a month. When divided by 30 days in a month,
this means that I earn $43 USD per month!
Then when I divide this
amount by the current black market rate of the United States dollar
to the Zimbabwe dollar -- Z$1 million -- it means that my employer
expects me to live on $0.43 USD cents a day.
I am supposed to be a
professional; was this why I went through college and graduated
with a Higher National Diploma in Mass Communication and Journalism?
I attack the present
government for their failures; for ruining the economy, for underpaying
civil servants. I cover civil servants' strikes (nurses, doctors,
etc) and demand that the government remunerate these people better.
My colleagues and I write stories showing how their strikes are
crippling delivery of critical health services and putting people's
lives at risk. Often, our reports produce good results: the problems
get addressed.
Civil servants are rewarded
salary increments, making them happy. Yet at the end of a day spent
covering their problems, I am supposed to go back and take care
of my two children on $0.43 cents USD a day. This is the hidden
hypocrisy of the owners of some of these independent press publishers:
they pocket all the profits and buy expensive cars and houses, and
live like kings and queens -- by exploiting us.
Our former classmates
in the state-controlled media are much better paid for promoting
Mugabe's propaganda. Journalists for the state-controlled media
the same drive expensive cars the press moguls do; they live in
up-market suburbs. Meanwhile, we in the so-called independent press
live from hand to mouth.
The comfortably situated
journalists laugh at us behind our backs, saying, "Those people
are selling out their country and are getting nothing for it."
There is a really painful truth in this: the people who first started
this struggle against Mugabe have stabbed us in the back! They have
become greedy, and so in one sense are even worse than Mugabe himself.
In any case, they have really missed the boat.
The many independent
journalists here comfort ourselves that we have a passion for what
we are doing. This is what keeps us going. Then I sometimes think,
what would happen if one day I just said to the people with AIDS
who count on me, "Please don't tell me about your problems,
I don't work overtime. Besides, I'm underpaid anyway." I could
do that, but I don't want to. I chose this profession; I have a
passion for journalism and will never tire of doing my work. I travel
to see people with AIDS regularly when they have problems. I pay
my bus fare from my own pocket; I buy flowers and fruits when I
visit the sick, whether they are at home or in hospital. I always
use my own money to do this; never once have I claimed a cent in
compensation from the company for which I work. My publishers don't
stop to think that the associations I have developed over the years
with the AIDS community are the reason why their newspaper is rated
so highly for its HIV and AIDS reporting. Ironically, they have
received many awards over the years for this coverage. This is how
it works: one PLWA will tell another PLWA that this reporter from
this paper is sympathetic. Then, BOOM -- the next minute I have
a scoop on my desk. Just like that, their paper sells out that day.
I write from my heart, but unfortunately, my bosses apparently think
I just work some sort of magic!
I love what I do, but
I have grown to hate the capitalists who are focused on profits
and profit sharing, and nothing else. I am not saying that I should
be paid a fortune. I don't want to start cruising around town in
the latest, most expensive cars. But please, just pay me enough
for my basics: my rent, food, transportation and clothing!
The good thing is that
my PLWA friends know I have no financial means to help them. Nonetheless,
they find solace just in sharing their issues with me. I have no
problem with this, but I can't help but feel useless and angry at
a system that has betrayed these men and women. What am I expected
to do when they tell me they have no money for food, for ARVs, for
general medication, or for school fees for their children?
Last week I attended
and covered a function hosted by the New Life Support group, which
is a post-test club for PLWAs. It was set up by Population Services
International (PSI), an international non-governmental organization
(NGO).
PSI-Zimbabwe conducts
social marketing projects on behalf of the government's Ministry
of Health and Child Welfare. It has programs with the Zimbabwe National
Family Planning Council and the National Aids Council on HIV and
AIDS prevention and Tuberculosis.
So at this function I
bumped into most of my friends; they were graduating after having
completed a Life Skills and Sex Education Examination. They will
now go back to their respective communities and teach the young
and the old about issues of HIV and AIDS.
But the assignment left
me worried about three special cases.
One AIDS friend whom
for security reasons I will call Pamela told me that she still had
not found an NGO to help her get onto third line Anti Retroviral
Therapy (ART), which is not yet available in Zimbabwe.
This is particularly
sad because early this year, the private media ran a story on Pamela's
desperate need for these drugs as soon as possible, asking for donations,
since at that time Pamela's CD4 count was at a low of 50.
(The CD4 count tells a doctor how strong a patient's immune system
is, how far HIV has advanced, and it helps identify the health problems
for which a person is at risk and helps determine which medications
might be helpful. Normal CD4 counts in adults range from 500 to
1,500 cells per cubic millimeter of blood.) Pamela had been treated
with both first and second line therapies in 2002. Then two years
ago, she was told that she needed third line treatment -- urgently.
When a person begins
ART, they start on first line drugs (these are readily available
in Zimbabwe but also relatively expensive). First line drugs such
as Stamudivine, Lamudivine and Nevirapine are available free through
the goverment's ARV program.
Many have described the
side effects they now suffer from due to prolonged use of the drugs.
If or when a patient develops problems with or resistance to all
of the first line drugs, that person is then moved over to the second
line drugs (which are more expensive in Zimbabwe because they are
imported from outside the country).
Pharmacies here take
special orders for these second line drugs, but only for those who
can afford them. These drugs can be imported from neighboring countries
such as South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique as well as
Europe. Then if one is unfortunate enough to develop resistance
to second line drugs, a PLWA has to move to third line drugs, whose
availability and expense is the same as second line; but which are
only available for those who can afford to import them.
And Pamela cannot afford
all this. So, two years down the line and almost five months after
the newspaper article appeal, Pamela has not yet found a donor who
will contribute funds for her third line treatment. It is clear
she is living on borrowed time.
Her CD4 count
is now down to 34; time seems to be running out for her very quickly.
When I spoke to Pamela at that graduation, she was her usual self:
chirpy and talkative and bravely hanging in there. I found myself
admiring her strength. Her little shoulders were carrying all that
excess baggage but it didn't even show, except to those who knew
her.
I also briefly spoke
to Samuel (not his real name) who lost his job at a local hotel
because his employers said he was looking "sickly." They
argued that for the sake of the company's image, they could not
keep him on. They forced him into early retirement. The private
media also carried a story on Samuel, who sought the help of the
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights in seeking some redress from the
hotel. His case has been pending for three years; now he is concerned
that the courts are too pre occupied with political cases between
the Movement for Democratic Change and the ruling ZANU PF to be
concerned with "small fish" like him. He had hoped that
by this time the hotel would have compensated him. Samuel's pension
is slowly running out and soon he may not be able to buy his ARVs,
nor to take care of his family.
Then there is Roselyn
(not her real name); she has no money to buy ARVs in the private
sector and has failed to enroll in the free state-run program. A
mother of two, she fears that if she cannot access ARVs soon, she
will die and leave her children orphans. We have tried to get Rose
into programs run by NGOs, but most of them are full. They say they
will only start enrolling new patients after the elections next
year.
This is the political
situation affecting health funding in Zimbabwe: not only are many
HIV programs very poorly funded, but funding on health and HIV and
AIDS generally has dried up, as many countries continue to withhold
funds in protest to of the human rights abuses, the corruption and
misrule of the Mugabe-led government.
According to the United
Nations Children's Fund, health financing through donor support
per person in Zimbabwe is now down to $4 USD per annum. Compare
that to the $104 in Botswana, $39 in Lesotho, $192 in Mozambique,
$139 in Swaziland, $362 in Uganda and $190 in Zambia. Does anyone
believe it is just donor fatigue that is controlling the funds that
go to Zimbabwe?
And caught in this political
struggle are my friends Rose, Samuel and Pamela. Many AIDS victims
in Zimbabwe continue to die needlessly; while they have no access
to ARVs, the small portion of ARVs that are available are being
issued corruptly to those with "government connections".
The outlook is frightening:
More than 1.8 million
are living with HIV. Of this figure, at least 3000 people die from
AIDS-related illnesses in Zimbabwe each week.
Only about 86,000 people
have access to these life-prolonging ARV drugs, while more than
800,000 people are in urgent need of them. Of the 86,000 lucky enough
to be on ART, 95 percent of those are on first line treatments;
4 percent are on alternative first line treatment; and
1 percent are on second line treatment.
Zimbabweans are now running
the race for universal access to treatment "on a thorny track
on bare feet," as one activist put it. Life or death is a human
rights issue, and it is my hope that donor agencies will soon see
things differently. The situation here is not just a political problem
that needs to be solved. The lives of very real people involved.
*Constance Manika
is a journalist who works for the independent press in Zimbabwe.
She writes under this pseudonym to escape prosecution from a government
whose onslaught and level of intolerance to journalists in the independent
press is well documented.
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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