A recent survey shows that the most urgent problem people with HIV or AIDS have is poor access to common medical treatment, especially surgeries.

The survey, which was conducted by the International Labour Organization, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Marie Stopes International China, interviewed 103 HIV-positive patients and 23 medical professionals about discrimination in medical institutions against people with HIV or AIDS.

By law, medical centers cannot deny treatment to HIV-positive or AIDS patients because they have the virus or illness. But a 2009 survey showed that 12.1 percent of the HIV patients surveyed had been refused medical care at least once since testing positive for HIV. In Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, one hospital discharged or transferred 15 patients out of 28 who had tested positive for HIV in pre-surgery tests.

Many hospitals refuse to provide medical services to people with HIV directly or with excuses such as the lack of special equipment. Sometimes they require HIV-positive patients to publicize their treatment as a condition for receiving treatment, which patients often reject, said Meng Lin, general coordinator of the China Alliance of People Living with HIV/AIDS.

One patient with HIV, who suffers from back pains, traveled between Tianjin and Beijing to visit a hospital that would help him. "At the beginning, they all said I needed immediate surgery," he said. "But once they were informed I was HIV-positive, they change their mind and said what I really needed was conservative treatment." Today, he has to walk with crutches.

Another patient said he was often rejected because doctors worried that other patients would panic and refuse to come if they knew he was in the same hospital. "Once I just caught a cold, but I couldn't find a doctor willing to help," he said.

Many medical workers at general hospitals believe that people with HIV should be transferred to a designated hospital regardless of the medical assistance they require. This also becomes an excuse for general hospitals to get rid of HIV-positive patients.

According to Zhang Ke, deputy director of the Infectious Disease Department at Beijing You An Hospital, the designated hospitals are designed to provide more professional and efficient antiretroviral therapy to people living with HIV. "But now, nearly 80 percent of medical resources in our hospital are used to cure common diseases," Zhang said.

A health care worker at a 3A general hospital in Beijing told researchers that he once met an HIV-positive patient who was suffering from serious eye problem. "Judging from the treatment and diagnostic competence of the eye department in the infectious disease hospital, the patient was likely to go blind," said the worker. "If he had the surgery here [at the worker's hospital], this would have been avoided." But in the end, the hospital decided to transfer the patient to a designated hospital.

Meng suggested the health administrators make more effort in enforcing the law and strengthen punishment for violations by medical institutions.

Zhang said HIV-positive patients and doctors in general hospitals should try to understand each other better through more communication. "I believe most doctors are responsible and professional," Zhang said. "Sometimes fear and different treatment result from poor awareness of HIV; and people living with HIV may misinterpret some routine procedures as discrimination activities."