Mumbai: Three people afflicted with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), including two women, were allegedly humiliated and denied treatment at state/civic-run hospitals recently. The patients have approached the MDACS (Mumbai District AIDS Control Society), the nodal body to tackle HIV in the city, with their complaints.
One of the three victims, a 44-year-old woman, had gone to the state-run JJ Hospital following numbness in her hand. But she said the doctors at the ART (Anti-Retroviral Therapy) centre at the hospital shooed her away, saying, “Let ants run all over your body.”
The victim said, “I am suffering from numbness in my hand. When I showed it to the doctor at JJ Hospital’s ART centre, he mentioned, ‘eat sugar and let ants run all over your body.’”
“I went there for taking treatment not to listen to the arrogant words of doctors. It’s sheer humiliation and we cannot raise our voice as we have to see that person again,” she said. Another victim, a 54-year-old man, said he was not attended to at the civic-run Shatabdi Hospital when he had gone for a check-up.
