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World AIDS Day 2009 Launch

At 10:30 last Thursday, I went home and did not realise that that we will not have a home to go to. On Friday, Dr. Shanti Singh and Jennifer Ganesh met me and asked if the launching of World AIDS Day 2009 would be postponed and I remembered that the theme for Guyana’s launching of World AIDS Day 2009 would be out of a calypso sung by Young Bill Rogers. In the midst of the ongoing flames, in the midst of tragedy, I responded by saying, “Put It On.” I am delighted that confronted with grave tragedy and confronted with crisis, not a single event, not a single service, not as single meeting has been postponed or changed. We provided our services, we met our obligations, and all of our events have taken place on time. I pay tribute to the men and women, many young men and women, to the students and all of us who came together to ensure that the people of Guyana were not deserted, were not abandoned in their time of need.

The fire may have burnt a building down and the fire may have burnt and destroyed a building in which some of us worked and called home, but it also provided a crisis for every single Guyanese, young and old, and even a crisis for those of our children who are about to be born, have not yet seen the light of day, but the fire mete to them too, and it is in those circumstances that the Ministry of Health has always been called to respond, has always been called upon to ensure that the people of Guyana are able to respond to the crisis, any crisis better and their lives are protected.

Today, as we gather to launch World AIDS Day 2009, we do so with the spirit that we in the Ministry of Health will always be by our people’s side and we will do whatever it takes to make their lives better.

“Put It On” Campaign is about making lives better in our country and around the world. That is why it was imperative that the launching of this campaign was not deferred by the fire or storm, by warp minds or anything. In the developed countries where snows and sleets, the mailman says, “Neither snow or sleet shall keep me away from my duty,” and I want to give a message to those who would even think of burning down the Ministry of Health building or any building, that look at us, look at us, your Guyanese sisters and brother, neither storm nor fire will prevent us from being by our people’s side and providing the services that we were trained to provide, that we have the ability to provide and that we will provide to the best of our ability and go beyond the call of duty to provide. That is why at 8:00 hrs on Friday morning we were available and we were out there doing what we do best, providing health to our people.

Too many people have lost their lives around the world. Not long from now the number would reach 30 million people, 30 million people, many of them children who have lost their lives. Believe it or not, accept it or not, the fundamental reason for those lives being lost and those lives continued to be lost and lives being lived in tragedies in Guyana and around the world is based on one fundamental truth. That is whether this is in Guyana or it is in New York, whether it is in Port of Spain or it is in Kabul, whether it is in Johannesburg or it is in London, there is one fundamental truth that existed in 1981, that existed in 1991, that existed in 2001, that exists here today in 2009. It is that we continue to live in denial. We continue to live in denial.

I do not know what the number of us in this room is, but I can bet you one thing that there is more than one person, there are several people in this room today who believe that he or she is not at risk for HIV. The truth is, as we sit here with all the seats occupied, each one of us is at risk. I don’t know which one of us might be hit by a bus and we might need blood. If there isn’t safe blood, we are at risk. For those of us who are married! Well! Most of us are in faithful relationships, but can you really be certain? There are those who use drugs and many of us in this room use alcohol and alcohol dims our judgment. We don’t like to admit it, but when we live a life that might protect us from certain risk, we are all at risk. We are all at risk and therefore we must all do our part. That is where the fundamental problem that existed from day one, that we always seem to think that the problem comes because of the other person.

Today as we launch World AIDS day 2009, I say we have all contributed to the problem because we have all at some point stigmatised and discriminated against people. I give you a very good example, all of us in this room, including the Minister of Health of Guyana and all of my colleagues that are sitting up front there, I address UNICEF, in particular, that I am the chief culprit, that I am the Minister of Health of Guyana. There are children born with HIV and who have we blamed. We have blamed their mothers. We have blamed their mothers. We have made our womenfolk and our sisters vectors. We have said that they as vectors have given their children HIV. We have blamed them. See you didn’t think you stigmatised people right? You thought you were beyond it. You see how innocently we have all stigmatised people. Young women are not to be blamed for the fact that their children, our children are born with HIV, and that is the fundamental truth that we live in a world of denial. We thought that we don’t stigmatise right! You see how we did it without thinking. Somebody gave that young woman HIV along the way.

For my Ministry of Health, we must recognise that what we must protect children from parental transmission of HIV, and I am happy that in Guyana from day number one our prevention and transmission programme in Guyana in the antenatal programme has always been the better. It has always been that we tested and offer counselling and testing, not only to women, but to their family, to the women and their spouses, whether it is their husband or their partner. I only mentioned that for us to think a little bit, to think a little bit. We find reasons to exclude ourselves and so we thought about vulnerable populations, as if HIV, the way we speak about them, as if HIV is their problem and we, the other side; the non-vulnerable group, are being generous and charitable. Do you understand what I am saying?

So the whole problem is those men who have sex with men, those female commercial sex workers, and those persons who practice drug use. That is the problem and we come with our generosity to help them out. Where did stigma come from? Did it come from us! Oh my God! It did. So we who treat everyone that come to our health services for diabetes and malaria and all kinds of things openly; suddenly it is HIV and we “shush”. Don’t come for HIV, just sit there like you come for something else, or we take them in a room and we hide them way and we hide ourselves away, and then we wonder why? Why people stigmatise HIV? Is we who have done it, we have done it. I am saying to Michel Sidibé, and UNAIDS, I saying to Margaret Chan of WHO, and I say to Ban Ki-moon of the UN, I say to all the scientists around the world it is time to take a step back and see what we have done. We continue to perpetuate an environment of denial in the world and that remains a fundamental explanation why we make such small dents in the fight against HIV.

As a Minister of Health from a developing country and a small country, I say to the world today, “Let us stand up and let us recognise the problem.” When we design programmes, we design programmes for every citizen, not for vulnerable groups. So when I ask for some help for programmes, whether it is from PEPFAR or Global Fund, or even UNAIDS or WHO and UNICEF, I must prove that I am designing programmes for vulnerable populations. But I say that I want to develop a programme for every citizen of Guyana, for every citizen for Guyana. Somebody told me the other day that, “No! We have to address this issue of men having sex with men,” that how do I know which child is going to be the next man who is going to have sex with another man?

Every child out there is vulnerable, but I don’t know who is going to be the next one in an accident who will need blood. Every citizen is vulnerable to HIV. We must design programmes for everyone.And so when Bill Rogers sing, “Put It On” and when these children becomes religious to “Put It On.” We are not talking to a vulnerable population. We are not talking to men who have sex with men, and we are not talking to commercial sex workers. We are talking to every citizen in our country, every man and woman and every boy and girl. That is what the message “Put It On” is for. Not for one section of the population, so let’s stop this nonsense.

What we do, however, recognise is that there are some people who are more difficult to reach, and our programmes must be so designed to each every citizen, every citizen, recognising that we may have to do more for some, but in our eagerness to do more for some, we have fallen into a trap and we start talking only about certain groups and we polarise ourselves. “Put It On” is for everyone. Condom protects lives, and it is a message for everyone, including in the churches. I see Basil Alexander is in my eyesight. There are other pastors who are in this room and there are pandits and Imams. The message is for us all. Don’t make the mistake that those of us in church on Sunday morning are not vulnerable. It’s the people out there that are vulnerable.

My message today is simple. We have fallen into traps and you see it one time. The fight against HIV became treatment. We must continue to strengthen our programmes to treat those who live with HIV. We must continue to support those who live with HIV, so they will live long lives, long productive lives, so they will continue to participate in the everyday activity of family, of village and of our community and our country. But we must also recognise that in a country like Guyana more than 98% are not infected; yet, and so we must also think of how we protect them. Prevention! And so up to a few years ago when we talked about universal access, automatically universal access was about treatment. Prevention must also be a priority for universal access. Our children in school and our people wherever they are, in their homes, in their workplaces, in their churches must have access to prevention. We must teach our people, every citizen about HIV. Too many of our people still remain unaware of basic facts about HIV.

I am proud as are the people around me that we have significantly increased knowledge in our country, but I remind my colleagues at the Ministry of Health that whilst there is something to pat yourselves on the back for, that we have created an environment for awareness and education in our country about HIV, the right amount, the best in the world, our job has not yet been successfully done because there are lives who are still unaware of the basic facts. And so for me it is not the 90% of the people that know, it is the 10% that don’t know.

There is a television show I think called, The Weakest Link. See, our strength in the fight against HIV is our weakest link and our weakest link is those who do not know the basic facts. And so as we leave today to prepare ourselves for World AIDS day 2009, lets each one of us reaffirm and recommit ourselves that we will find those people and we will make sure that there isn’t a Guyanese who don’t possess the awareness and education necessary. There are too many of our people who don’t know their status. How many of you in this room; don’t raise your hands, don’t know your HIV status. If you don’t know, when we leave here go to one of the more than 100 VCT sites in our country and know your status. Because if you don’t know your status, you are part of the weakness link.

We have made significant progress in Guyana today that wherever you live in Guyana you have access to VCT, but we have failed to persuade every Guyanese to know their status and that comes down to too many of us saying, “Oh! I’m not at risk so I don’t need to test. The state of denial once again. And there are persons living with HIV who are afraid to reveal their status even to a small group. There are too many Guyanese living with HIV who have not yet discussed their status with their partners and their family, much less their health workers. Those are the facts. I am not a very religious person, but I think the Bible says; those of my biblical colleagues, I think it says if something affects one part of us, it affects all of us. I don’t know if those are the words. Corinthians. I don’t know the exact words, and therefore we all have to work to successfully confront HIV. And so when we all know who deserve tribute, like Shanti and her colleagues at National AIDS Programme, we all celebrate together because it is our success. I once said that I will not sleep at nights well because I know that there are Guyanese children who might tomorrow be born with HIV. We must not rest. We must not rest. We must ensure that all of our citizens are equipped with the knowledge and the tools that science has given to us.

To my religious comrades and colleagues, the use of condoms is not a nonreligious thing. Condoms were designed by scientists who utilise the wisdom and knowledge that the divine authority bestowed on them. We were mandated to utilise the knowledge and wisdom that God blessed us with as God also said that you will live in a world with pestilence and we must learn to deal with such pestilence. We the people have learnt that one of the pestilences can be eliminated or reduced by the use of condoms. As the Minister of Health in Guyana, as one brought up in religion, I say to my sisters and brothers in the church, “Allow the people to use their God given wisdom and protect themselves because God will help those who help themselves.” Even today, that in the next few days in our mandirs and mosques in our churches, there will be pastors and imams and pandits who will say, “Put It On.” We have the ammunition to stop you and one of them we will “Put It On” and we will stop you.

So, today I have the pleasure of changing the trajectory of this fight. My message today was spoken from the heart that I came here with a message, that I for one will not be a part of a misguided campaign. I am not going to divide us anymore. I am not going to speak of certain groups as if they are a different set of people from me. Each one of the citizen of this country or a citizen of the world is my sister, is my brother and I am not going to put them in a category and place them and castigate them and stigmatise them. We are in this together and we will fight together and we will do all the extra things that we need to do for some of my sisters and brothers, but the HIV fight is all of our fight and HIV is a risk and a treat to my survival and my welfare as much as it is to any other person, and whatever I do or we do are things we do, not out of generosity, but for our common good. When one other person is protected, it means me and my family are also protected. This is our fight and we must no longer divide the fight up. It must not be, “You are a treat and I will come and help you fight.” We are a treat and we are fighting together, so let us “Put It On,” let’s work hard and let’s make World AIDS Day 2009 Guyana’s fight and Guyana’s practicing model to the world. Let’s bring the world, let them march with us and we will succeed against HIV.

Hon. Leslie Ramsammy
Minister of Health
Ministry of Health

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