Health Ministry cuts back on HIV funding

FMT The Health Ministry has allegedly cut HIV/Aids-related funds this year, potentially leaving thousands of infected patients to fend for themselves.
KUALA LUMPUR: Six years ago, Suzy (not her real name), was forced through difficult circumstances to become a sex worker.
Her family was out of money, riddled in debt and her father was suffering from gout. Back then, Suzy (now 31) had no other choice. She is a transgender.
Because of her sexuality, no “normal” company would hire her. She would remain jobless since she left school.
“Yes (it was my choice to become a sex worker)…I had to take care of my family,” the shy Suzy, told FMT. “I had to take care of our debts. My father is sick. He has gout. It was very difficult to find a job.”
After a short stint as a sex worker, Suzy was taken in by the HIV/Aids NGO Women & Health Association of Kuala Lumpur (WAKE) in 2006.
She would eventually become an outreach worker there, handing out condoms and lubricants to sex workers, as well as giving counsel to HIV-infected people.
Safe sex and HIV prevention were some of the topics she would tell her 377 “clients” from time to time.
But in a few days, Suzy (and many other HIV-outreach workers like her) will lose her job. She faces the prospect of selling herself on the streets again.
This is because the money for these NGOs, allocated to them from the Health Ministry, has been cut.
In early January this year, the ministry supposedly cut a large portion of its yearly funds to the Malaysian Aids Council (MAC).
The MAC acts as an umbrella body to several HIV-treatment NGOs across the country, distributing the ministry’s approved funds since 2006.
This year however, it has left several of these NGOs out of the loop, forcing some of them to sack their workers.
No reason given
Suzy’s manager Muhammad Daruz told FMT that the ministry did not give a reason why it stopped approving funds for WAKE’s HIV prevention work, even though it had been steadily funding them since 2007.
“Every year, we submit our proposal (for the funds), but this year we’ve been told that it was not approved…There was no reason. It was not approved, and that’s it,” he said.
According to Muhammad, the cut funds meant that he had to see many of his people go by the end of February.
“If we have no funding, how are we going to pay them?..Of course (we’re not happy), they’ve been with us (for so long), but (now) they won’t have any income,” he added.
But the biggest losers from this change, Muhammad said, were the thousands HIV/Aids-infected clients, who had no one to turn to because of this money cut.
These included Malaysia’s sex workers, transgenders, drug users and children born with the deadly virus.
NGOs claim that there as many as 91,362 cases of HIV infections in Malaysia, as well as over 60,000 sex workers.
The cut funds came as a shock to many of the NGOs, who felt that the government’s support and funds in recent years has helped to curb HIV infections.
In a March 2010 media report, Deputy Health Minister Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin was quoyed as saying that Malaysia had seen a drop in HIV cases, as compared to a decade before.
According to the MAC’s website, Malaysia recorded 3,652 HIV cases in 2010. In 2001, the number of cases that year was 5,938.
Johor HIV-outreach worker Ita (not her real name) feared the worst with the government supposedly cutting these funds.
Speaking on her work at Intan Life Zone (her NGO), Ita warned that the HIV virus could spread if there was no money for these outreach workers.
“We need to help (the HIV-infected), and we need the budget for it. We’re not a business, and we can’t earn back the money for this every month.”
“If we can’t run the NGO, we cannot give (clean) needles to (drug users),” she said, adding that many drug users tended to share needles.
Ita said that this might cause the HIV virus to spread amongst drug users, and in worst-case scenarios, on to their wives and children.
She also defended her NGO’s work, saying that it was not encouraging drug use, but keeping the HIV pandemic in check.
Seeking a meeting
Malaysian Aids Council president Mohd Zaman Khan told FMT that the ministry’s funds this year fell short of previous years.
He also confirmed that not all the NGOs had been affected by the cut. “Some, not all…The budget (for 2012) has been approved, but has been short of what we asked for.”
“We were told of the amount, and they (ministry) told us some of the project was approved and (some) were not approved.”
“Of course we don’t expect (a lot) to be given. We expected a cut, but we did not expect such a cut that tends to affect our ability on the ground,” he said.
Zaman was however reluctant to disclose how much this cut, or the total approved budget was.
Nevertheless, he told FMT that the MAC had – very soon after it saw the cut- sent a letter to Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai asking for a meeting on the matter “as soon as possible”.
He added that some NGOs did not seem to record a good performance, whilst others did not submit reports back to the MAC for the ministry to check.
Even so, Zaman said that he would consider bringing up the matter with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak if the meeting with the ministry did not end satisfactorily.
When contacted, the ministry was unavailable for comment.