Australia is 'failing' in AIDS care
By Shelly Simonds Australia has been recognised as a world leader in HIV/AIDS prevention but has not been as successful in the care and treatment of those who have already contracted HIV/AIDS, an ANU PhD student has concluded in his thesis. The fact that HIV/AIDS patients are living longer also highlights the need for the government to improve the balance between funding prevention and care, said Mark Edwards, completing a PhD with the Public Policy Program and a lecturer in the Centre for Continuing Education. In the 1980s, an HIV/AIDS patient often assumed there was not much time left to live. Edwards said many decided to quit their jobs due to ill health and some decided to live their last years of health to the fullest through holidays and international travel. But in the 1990s it became clear many of these patients would live healthy lives for many years, with the help of new HIV/AIDS treatments. People who had dropped out of the workforce, assuming their health would rapidly deteriorate, needed help re-integrating into work and living with HIV/AIDS . "Non-medical care and treatment is something we do very badly and this is because we're dominated by the medical culture of pills and operations. However, it's been proven if you provide support mechanisms, people do improve and get better," Mr Edwards said. More funding was needed for grass roots advocacy groups who provide lobbying and care for HIV/AIDS patients, he said. The government had been in denial about HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, Mr Edwards said. As a result HIV/AIDS-affected communities had to develop their own responses and networks of community information on the "unrecognised" and "unnamed" disease. "Male homosexuals, sex workers, and intravenous drug users - all three groups were illegal in the early 1980s, and this limited the government's ability to act." Australia's HIV/AIDS policy was exceptional on a number of levels, Mr Edwards' analysis showed. The response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic was unique because the government gave responsibility to community organisations that were already responding to the crisis. "The politicians weren't interested. The bureaucracy knew nothing about it. So government went to the affected community and said, what do you need?" Mr Edwards said. By the early 1990s, governments around the world had modelled their HIV/AIDS policies on Australia's. Its HIV/AIDS policy was also exceptional from a policy perspective because it was an area of consensus between the political parties, Mr Edwards said. "There has never been a party political argument recorded in the Federal Parliament on HIV/AIDS," he said. "After all, HIV/AIDS is seen to be about death and that's not something politicians want to be associated with."