Hospitals have repeatedly refused to operate on a five-year-old
AIDS patient with a blocked esophagus because they fear exposure to
the disease, the Nanfang Metropolis News reported on
Monday.
The boy, whose name was not released, contracted AIDS from his
mother, who died in February, the Guangzhou-based newspaper
said.
The child is now being treated in the Guangzhou Children's
Hospital, where he is looked after by his father.
His trouble intensified when he began to suffer mouth ulcers
around the end of 2005. His condition deteriorated, and his
esophagus became so enlarged that the child can't even swallow
water.
He is being kept alive by intravenous feeding, the newspaper
said.
After being refused an operation by many large hospitals in
their native Hunan Province, the father said he took his
son to Guangdong earlier this month. He was told that the Guangzhou
Children's Hospital was the only facility in south China that is
capable of performing such an operation on a child.
A charitable organization from Macao promised to cover all of
the boy's treatment costs; however, when the hospital learned the
boy was an AIDS patient, the operation was canceled, the newspaper
said.
Doctors reportedly told the father the hospital is not
specialized in treating AIDS patients, and an operation on an AIDS
victim may make doctors vulnerable to infection.
Another child who suffered from AIDS and was in need of a
similar operation died a month ago in south China after being
refused the procedure, the newspaper said.
A Guangdong-based AIDS prevention and treatment expert said an
earlier survey showed that medical workers often discriminate
against AIDS patients.
(Shanghai Daily via CRI June 26, 2007)