‘How I got infected with HIV’

BAYO ALADE speaks with an HIV patient who revealed how he got the virus and how he has been coping with life all through the years since he discovered his HIV status.

You are a person living with HIV (PLWHIV); how did you contract the virus?

I was seriously ill then. That was about 11 years ago. I went to this hospital and needed blood transfusion. Unfortunately the blood was contaminated with HIV but we did not know then. So after several months I began to feel very ill again. It was in the process of investigation that it was discovered that I was transfused with contaminated blood.

It became a legal issue but in the long run the medical director of the hospital stopped coming to court and he even travelled out of the country as we learnt later. That was how the case died a natural death and I had to, unfortunately, accept my fate.

As a PLWHIV, what has been your experience since you contracted the virus more than a decade ago?

It has not been easy. Sometimes we have had cases of some of us PLWH dying or even committing suicide. This is as a result of the situation that we face on a daily basis. Before 2015, the organisation taking care of us often organise seminars for us; they give us money, provide us with jobs that are commensurate with our capability and state of health. The seminar could be twice a month.

They also used to give us provisions and beverages that would make us look healthy. If somebody has HIV and eats good food, you may not know unless he discloses his HIV status because he would look normal and well-fed. But if one does not have a job, that person would go hungry and begin to emaciate.  You are on your own. Recently, on November 23, we celebrated the HIV/AIDS week and the Oyo State governor’s wife was there but thing are no longer the same.

How do you mean?

At a point in time the World Health Organisation began to complain that they were not seeing the effects of the grant that they were giving the Nigerian government. Health officials who would have been given money to go to Abuja to collect drugs and other things would come back and be collecting money again for those of us PLWH whenever we come to collect our drugs on a monthly basis.

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The health officials are expected to go to the rural areas to educate people on HIV/AIDS but they would not. They were expected to set up centres in these rural communities but nothing was happening. In many rural areas there are no hospitals. In my village there are no hospitals. So if there is somebody living with HIV, how would that person survive? He would eventually die. Bu the donors were noticing all these things because they had given out the grants to take care of them. So they began to withdraw little by little.

Do PLHIIVs still get the anti-retroviral drugs free and how easy is it to do this?

Yes they do and that is all we get now; but there are some drugs that we used to buy for ourselves and we still buy them till now. Like I said there is exploitation of PLWHIV. One need to be feeding well otherwise one may just fall down one day and die.

So comparing then and now, PLWHIV are really having a rough time

Yes I’m telling you. They used to give us food stuffs, new clothes and other things. Then, some philanthropists used to support us but as time went on, things began to change and the philanthropists began to draw back too. Somebody like the late Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Arisekola Alao and one Reverend Ladigbolu of Ogbomosho, Chief Harry Akande, among others were supporting us greatly but, like I said, things have changed.

Before now every December, Chief Bode Akindele would invite us to his house and he would entertain us. Many others too and they would let us know that it was their own personal support, not from government.

It is a difficult situation now because some people would tell you they don’t have a job for you, ‘but just keep coming from time to time and if there is anything we would let you know.’ It is not easy going to people and be begging for things. With time they begin to see you as a beggar and a nuisance. It is actually a difficult life. There is nothing like being gainfully employed, even if the salary is small, one would continue to manage it.

I have had to leave my children with my mum’s younger sister. When my health was good, anything about food packaging was my specialisation. I was a good salesman. The only thing I could not sell is a human being. But today I am jobless and depending on others to survive.