JAMAICANS GOING TO TRINIDAD FOR FREE HIV MEDICINE

ILLEGAL and undocumented migrants are entering Trinidad seeking free medical treatment, particularly for HIV, leading to a shortage of drugs.

The issue of shortage of drugs for HIV treatment was due to other Caricom nationals seeking free treatment in Trinidad and Tobago on short term visits was one of the main reasons for the implementation of health cards to protect TT nationals, says Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan.

“Why do you think there is a shortage of HIV drugs and kits, and we have to be constantly buying it? The amount of HIV cases is not going up in the country. It is very, very minimal,” he said.

Of Caricom nationals and others working and residing legally in TT, he said, “All we ask is that they get a legal document from the Ministry of National Security to show that they work and reside here legally, and they will get a health card.”

Prior to former national security minister Gary Griffith demitting office, Khan said, the health and national security ministries were conducting a survey on nationals from other CARICOM territories using the HIV services in TT.

“A significant number of Jamaicans were coming into the country for HIV drugs because they are getting it free,” he said. “It takes a lot of money to purchase the kits and drugs for HIV treatment.”

Some would come to access a six-month or three-month treatment. Some other persons would come to access the free treatment in TT, he said, because they do not want to get the treatment in their own country because of the fear of stigmatisation.

When people claim there is a shortage of drugs and kits, he said, “the people who are legally entitled to use it are not getting it.”

There is a group, he said, that is agitating for Government to give health cards to everybody in TT who has HIV, even if they are illegal immigrants with HIV so they can get free drugs.

“One of the main reasons, why the health card is being put in place,” Khan said, “is because there is a lot of illegal and undocumented migrants coming in and using the HIV system free of cost. That is the whole idea behind this heath card, you know.”

He continued, “Our citizens and legal residents are entitled to free service, not the whole world.”

Government cannot give health cards carte blanche to everybody who comes with HIV, he said. “People come here legally as visitors and they enter the system. They come and say they come to visit their family and then tap into our resources. They come through immigration because they cannot get it in their countries.”

Health care to visitors and illegal immigrants, he said, will not be denied emergency service.

“They will get emergency service. They will not get things like a kidney transplant or a cardiac stent and by-pass surgery unless it is an emergency or a life and death situation. We will stabilise them and then they could go back to their country, or, they could submit their travel medical insurance.”

The use of the health card, he said, “is going to force a lot of people coming to Trinidad and Tobago to get medical insurance.”

Commenting on the 2014 Trinidad and Tobago Global AIDS Response Progress Report (GARPR), Khan said, there has been a small increase in the number of HIV cases and zero increase in mother to child transmission in TT.

That does not mean that HIV cases have increased in more recent years, he said.

Asked about the absence of statistics for the past two years in GARPR which reported an increase from 2011 to 2012, Khan said, “We have been having some trouble with the HIV Response Team.”

The ministry, he said, has a lot of information that has not been relayed to UNAIDS.

“I have to blame the people in charge of HIV. I don’t submit the numbers. They submit the numbers. I sign off on them,” he said.

He advised that Newsday contact Chief Medical Officer, Dr Colin Furlonge, whom he said, was in charge of the HIV programme. At press time calls and messages to Furlonge were unanswered.

Some key personnel, Khan said, have left the HIV agency and because of that the ministry has asked the (United Nations Development Programme) to assist with a consultant to develop the HIV portfolio that will bring all the HIV systems in one place in TT.

“HIV needs to be totally managed from the Ministry of Health. There are other ministries doing HIV, not just the Ministry of Health alone,” he said.

Among the other ministries dealing with HIV are the Labour Ministry, he said “and the HIV Agency which was very active in the past, but has not been very active in the last years or so.”