The news may not be surprising, but it sure is distressing. Australia’s Same Same reports that 31% of HIV positive persons live below poverty. Despite the government’s promise to underwrite medical bills, about 286 of 924 survey respondents still can’t cope with the bills associated with infection:
In the La Trobe University’s Futures II study, which surveyed 924 Australian HIV positive people, more than half of the interviewees reported experiencing ‘some’ difficulty in meeting the cost of daily living. $190 is the amount of money available to patients on a disability pension and this is meant to pay for medications and clinic visits as well as day to day living expenses.
The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s dietician Antoinette Ackerie says that despite the Australian government subsidising the vast amount of costs associated with HIV medications, the medical burden of HIV is still “quite significant”.
Some patients – in both Australia and abroad – pay over two grand for HIV-related medicines every month. You know how much you have to pay for a condom? Nada – most bars carry them for free. And, even if they don’t, a condom costs about a nickel – far more affordable than years of drugs.
psgoodguy
don’t appreciate your snarky condom comment and the implications that go with it. are you saying to these people, tuff shit, you could have used a condom? didn’t expect this kind of discriminatory bullshit from a “queer” site.
oh, and lots of us were infected before HIV waw even identified.
Mr. B
I don’t think the comment was snarky at all. I think it was just kind of a putting-things-in-perspective message, not intended to target or criticize anyone. If any snark at all was intended, I’d think it would be toward the abstinence-only sheeple who think providing free condoms somehow INCREASES the problems associated with unprotected sex.
There’s also the issue of the upsurge of barebackers in recent years. And by barebackers, I mean the word the way it’s intended–the guys who know exactly what they’re doing when they forgo that condom and do it anyway.
Ash
The condom comment didn’t strike me as snarky at all, on the contrary, it was an intelligent and frank reminder. I took it to be directed at HIV-negative people, to remind them how simple it is to prevent all of this by going to any of the many, many places that offer free condoms. I would think that both HIV+ and HIV- people would agree that’s good advice.