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Marina Nikolova

The most severe is the battle against the social stigma for HIV positive people. But even the law has been against them since 2009, when the Supreme Court ruled that an employer acted properly when dismissing an employee because the person is suffering from AIDS. All this became clear during the press conference of the organization Positive Voice.

Following this precedent case, the National Commission on Human Rights turned to the employment rights of HIV positive and has already prepared a detailed report with proposals for action. Lydia Bolani from the National Commission for Human Rights told in more detail what happened not so long ago back in 2009 and what issues are raised. When the colleagues of the HIV positive employee learned about his illness they began to isolate him and to pressure their employer that they would stop working and he fired the employee. At first hearing, the district court ruled that the position of the other employees was based on unjustified fears and prejudices and therefore the dismissal of the employee is unjustified. But the Supreme Court ruled that the employer has the right "to keep the countenance of the other employees" and the "normal working process".

Clearly, there is great ignorance to the disease, said Lela Dimitriadou from the union of private employees GSEE. She announced that the trade union organization is launching a campaign to inform all employees about the disease and its spreading. "Work is a right for all and to work with people living with HIV does not threaten your health! Show respect!" are the words on the poster of GSEE and Positive Voice that will be placed at all working centres and brought to the private companies. "The disease does not spread through the social contact but the message of solidarity and compassion do," says Dimitriadou and notes that the most important thing is to fight the stigma, because it could prove to be an obstacle to finding and keeping a job. And as it became clear from the Supreme Court ruling two years ago, virus carriers are more vulnerable because they are not able to defend their rights, despite the scientifically unjustified assumptions underlying the decision. The employees must be protected, not isolated, said Dimitriadou.

According to Law 3304/2005, the HIV positive people are entitled to one month more vacation, but they do not dare use it because it means that they should notify their employers about their health condition, says the report of the Commission on Human Rights. "Because of stigma and prejudice, they prefer to remain silent. And here comes the question: is it necessary the HIV positive employee to fight the disease since at the same time he or she must fight not only in their social environment, but to have long legal battles too?" asks the report.

The social stigma appears to be among the most serious problems of the people living with AIDS, as well as the attitude to them at work; they have problems accessing medical services and have unprotected personal and medical data. There are few cases of HIV positive people who filed complaints to the Ombudsman, because dentists refused to treat them, pregnant women were refused to be made Caesarean section, they were refused blood purification or electroencephalography. This leads to two extremes: either the patients themselves to hide from the doctor that they have AIDS and the doctors will not take the necessary safety measures, or the doctor to make a test of a patient without his/her knowledge, which is also illegal," said Lydia Bolani. International organizations suggest comprehensive preventive measures to be taken, which would be more expensive than to apply the tests on target groups, but thus the health condition of the patients or the doctors can not be a reason for discrimination.

There should be information campaigns and health and sexual education classes in schools," said Lydia Bolani. To protect the privacy of people infected by the HIV virus, the European Court ruled that the media should not write their names in the publications as it threatens to have a negative impact on their social life and their work. Moreover, medical confidentiality should also be respected so that patients could trust the doctors. To protect the rights of HIV positive people and to inform the public, the Commission had prepared 15 proposals that would contribute to the reduction in the cases of infected people.

The event was attended by members of PASOK, LAOS and Sinaspismos. The deputy from the right parliamentary party LAOS Urania Papandreou-Papadaki referred to the results of recent scientific studies showing that if the disease is diagnosed at an early stage and a treatment is started then 97% of HIV positive people are likely to heal. Therefore, Mrs. Papadaki stresses the need all taboos to fall and the examinations for AIDS to become routine like those for hepatitis.

According to the data of the archive for HIV positive people, the first case in Greece appeared in 1983 and the archive was created in 2000 by the centre for disease control and prevention of diseases, keeping strictly anonymity. The total number of HIV positive people from 1983 to October 2010 is 10,452 and 80.9% of them are men, 18.7% are women, and the rest did not declare their gender. The number of the cases of the disease increased significantly after 2004 and their number exceeded 600 people between 2008 and 2009, and 519 new cases were recorded in 2010. Most often the disease is transmitted sexually and 46.5% of the sufferers are men infected through a sexual contact with other men, 22.2% of the cases are heterosexual men and women, 3.3% are drug addicts using injections and about 0.9% are the cases of infected through blood transfusion, and 0.6% are the children infected by their mothers at birth. The way of infection is not stated in 24.3% of the cases.
 
The PASOK deputy Panagiotis Kouroublis, who attended the meeting said that we "need to talk and not to be indifferent as a society" and committed himself to lead an initiative and to collect 1/3 of the signatures of the Committee on Social Affairs in Parliament to put the issues in the daily lives of people infected with AIDS on the agenda and discuss them. The deputy Fotis Hrisikos from Sinaspismos wondered whether the Greek mission, which will be sent to UNGASS will be able to bind to any of the three objectives set by UNAIDS by 2015: zero new cases of ill people, zero deaths and zero discrimination because of HIV positivism.
 
It became clear at the event that a group will work within the organization Positive Voice to draw up a text associated with the introduction of a new subject in school for health and sexual education. On this occasion, Hrisikos commented that the best health minister is the Minister of Education. In late May, Positive Voice together with the trade union GSEE will start a campaign aiming to send informational materials to all working centres in the country and hence to all companies.