Battles won, battles lost

The Councillor in Rotterdam responsible for Health, Jantine Kriens, has decided that Hiv patients no longer need psycho-social support.

Why? Because, she says, new methods of treatment mean that people with Hiv can now live to a ripe old age.

So organisations such as Humanitas which used to receive approximately 100,000 euro subsidy each year have been told that as of next year the subsidy stops.

What Ms Kriens conveniently forgets (or ignores) is that Hiv is a very different disease to other chronic diseases such as Diabetes, Cancer etc. First and foremost of course is that it is an all inclusive disease in as such as being Hiv infected means a higher risk of contracting Diabetes, Hart diseases, Cancer etc.

Add to this an almost universal stigma associated with Hiv and its hardly surprising when one finds out as a newly infected Hiv+ person that the world is not a very safe place any more.

Psycho-social support for Hiv+ people is at least as necessary today as it ever was. Especially for Gay men with Hiv for so many reasons that I've talked about before.

The Schorer Stichting doesn't/won't do it at a National level so it is left to small local organisations to carry the burden, and it is these organisations that will feel the knife in the next few years.

Of course its all about the money, it always is. However this won't be the last time that someone in charge of the purse strings makes this kind of decision.

P.S.

By the way, this is a left wing councillor in a dominantly left wing council. So forget any ideas you had that this could only happen in a right wing country.