The dialogue took place
at TGDLC where specialist psychiatrist
at Muhimbili National Hospital, Jessie
Mbwambo, shared his study to the counterpart
who did the same research at Ethiopia
through videoconference.
The study that included 120 health workers
revealed that shortage of supplies have
caused health workers to avoid treating
persons with HIV first making precaution
by passing infected person from one nurse
to another something that lowers status
of the infected persons.
He said that nurses fear that community
will view them as promiscuous if they
become infected at the workplace.
According to Mbwambo, some workers do
worse to the extent of gossip with colleagues
about the HIV status of their clients,
something that he banned to be unprofessional
according to ethics and code of conduct
of health workers.
As a result, he said that this is the
reason to why some HIV clients prefer
to places where they think they will be
well treated.
“The impact of this is that the
HIV persons travel further to seek for
treatment, incur great costs and sometimes
delay seeking care until health problems
are severe,” he said.
He said that various trainings have been
conducted by him to health workers to
reduce stigma intervention in the workplaces.
Lack of correct information and confidence
about HIV/AIDS among the health workers
during care giving has been revealed to
be the major source of discrimination
and stigmatization of the patients in
many HIV/AIDS care centers in Tanzania.
Speaking at the global dialogue yesterday
in Dar es Salaam that meant to fight HIV/AIDS
stigma and discrimination at the workplace,
Jessie Mbwambo said that most health workers
feel at risk of infection from their HIV
clients.
According to the study that Mbwambo did
on Stigma reduction intervention in workplace
particularly Dar es Salaam revealed that
health workers feel at risk of infection
due to the shortage of supplies of HIV/AIDs
treatment that can lead to accidental
exposure to the infection.
