WHY SOME PEOPLE REFUSE AN HIV TEST

The new readers to this blog might wonder why I have been involved with AIDS awareness. After a long period alone, I met a lovely woman in 1999 with whom I had a relationship.

I suggested that we have an AIDS test. But then I told her that I had been in hospital with cerebral malaria and was HIV tested about 6 months before. She told me she had given blood at her work place some 3 months before and her blood was accepted.

We came together and were very happy. Eighteen months later we had a son Jonathan. Linda refused to go to the ante-natal clinic as she said her mother and aunties would look after her.

Then in 2000, she gave birth to a son. She had given birth at Paradise private hospital. She was given an HIV test. Three weeks later we were called to the hospital while the doctor advised that Linda had tested HIV positive. Linda went crazy, accusing me of infecting her.

So I went to the Blood Bank and they checked her card from the file on her giving blood at the Gateway Hotel. The card said she was HIV positive. Linda should have gone for testing much earlier during her pregnancy. But these were the days before free ARV drugs.

My son died in 2002 of AIDS after dropping in health to look like a skeleton. But Linda had refused to go for a test. Why did she do this? Perhaps she knew she had HIV infection.

I worked out that she had been infected by her husband some 6 years before. He was from Taiwan and left the country in 2003 when he had what appeared to be Karposi’s Sarcoma on his back, a cancer and sure symptom of HIV infection.

My life changed forever at that point. I had planned to set up a training organization and support my family in Australia. But that dream died forever. My two younger children are never far from my thoughts. They are 40 and 36 years old.

I set up AIDS Holistics instead and faced a hate campaign from Australian gay and lesbian activists of AusAID and UN. They banned AIDS Holistics and blocked my work permit.

They did not want any focus on family and faith and made sure that AIDS Holistics was blocked from AusAID and UN funding. I went through to old age struggling on my military pension from Australia. 

I was still a family man though half my family was so far away. My phone number is +675 73169571.

But the question arises why the gay and lesbian advisors write brochures like the one below advising men and women that they can refuse an AIDS test. Please click:

HIV & HAVING CHILDREN - RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES

People are afraid that they are HIV positive and fearful to face the truth. It is the job of counsellors to reassure people who are afraid, not to help them to avoid the possible truth. An HIV test is a person's responsibility to spouse and children.

I was afraid that I was HIV positive after Linda. Every day I feared any rise in temperature or diarrhoea. I did not go for a test until 2003 as I was freaked out. Then I finally went for a test just to be told I was HIV positive. I understand people not being psychologically ready for an HIV test.

I was HIV negative !! It was all about being medically circumcised with no infections on the penis.