The shelter stays open. The Thaketa hospital was not a viable alternative. An anonymous informant says that the Special Hospital (Thaketa) does not treat HIV patients, but gives shelter for people living with HIV to come to Yangon for treatment. After attending clinics, they have to return to their home places and are not allowed to stay there any longer.
[him] moderator
++++++++++++++++++++
HIV shelter run by supporters of Myanmar democracy leader Suu Kyi gets last-minute reprieve
The Associated Press
Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:32:00 CST
YANGON, Myanmar - Authorities in military-ruled Myanmar gave a last-minute reprieve Thursday night to HIV patients living in a shelter run by supporters of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, after earlier saying it had to be shut down.
Yarzar, one of the shelter's staff, said the authorities agreed Thursday night to let the patients stay. Last week, local officials ordered the 80 patients to be moved by this week, saying without explanation that it would no longer approve the requests for overnight guests that are legally required.
The shelter's organizers believed the eviction threat was issued because Suu Kyi visited it just days after her Nov. 13 release from extended house arrest, promising to help provide badly needed medicine. The ruling junta regards Suu Kyi and her nonviolent struggle for democracy as a threat to its power.
The conciliatory gesture has a hitch, however: The permits must be renewed each week, and there is no guarantee that they will be.
Still, Yarzar said, "I am greatly relieved and so are the patients."
The shelter's organizers, who are public supporters of Suu Kyi's political movement, said earlier that they would not send the patients away despite the threat of legal action
The state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper said Wednesday that health officials had inspected the shelter in July and August and found it to be unhygienic, with patients susceptible to infections due to overcrowding.
Yarzar acknowledged the shelter was crowded but said preventive measures have been taken against the spread of diseases among the patients.
He said health authorities had offered to relocate the patients to a state-run HIV centre but the patients refused to move, saying their shelter not only offers medical care, food and accommodation but "warmth and affection that no other centre can provide."
http://www.mysask.com/portal/site/pc-saskatchewan/template.MAXIMIZE/news/?javax.portlet.tpst=482f4aa4b0013921802ac01060315ae8_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_482f4aa4b0013921802ac01060315ae8_viewID=story&javax.portlet.prp_482f4aa4b0013921802ac01060315ae8_topic_display_name=World%20News&javax.portlet.prp_482f4aa4b0013921802ac01060315ae8_topic_name=World&javax.portlet.prp_482f4aa4b0013921802ac01060315ae8_news_item_id_key=5239335&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken
++++++++++++++++++
Official U-turn on Aids patient evictions
Friday, 26 November 2010 01:10 Ko Wild
E-mail Print PDF
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese officials have reversed their order to evict Aids patients from a hospice Aung San Suu Kyi visited last week.
suu-visitPatients at South Dagon HIV /Aids “salvation centre”, run by the National League for Democracy (NLD), have been permitted to renew their guest registrations at the local authority, so were able to remain at the centre, a patient told Mizzima.
“The authorities removed their ban on guest registration for us. So we can now renew our guest registrations for a week as we could before the order … was issued … we have to renew our registration every seven days,” Htin Aung said.
At about 7 p.m. on Thursday, two NLD youth wing members met Ward Peace and Development Council chairman Than Soe, who agreed to permit the registrations.
The day after Suu Kyi visited on November 17, local junta authorities refused to register the patients as guests as required by junta laws, which state that if a Burmese citizen wants to stay overnight at a friend’s home or anywhere else they are absent from that accommodation's register, the person must report the visit to ward authorities. The reporting is usually a formality and the requests seldom denied. The ward appeared to be using the regulation to thwart NLD activities.
South Dagon Township Peace and Development Council chairman Ko Ko Hlaing then ordered the patients out of the centre and into Tharketa Hospital or told them to return to their family homes, many of which are far from Rangoon.
However, the patients said they were reluctant to move because of government hospitals’ poor services. They also feared the expense of buying medicines there as they had been dispensed free of charge at the NLD centre.
“We don’t think that the government hospitals can fully support us. That’s why we don’t want to go into the hospital. Here, we have been supported even for transport costs. And the centre puts our minds at ease,” said Htin Aung, who has lived in the centre for three years.
Htin Aung had initially been admitted to the Special Hospital at Mingaladon Township for emergency treatment for one-and-half months. There are 12 patients from the NLD centre receiving treatment there now.
The oldest patient at the centre is 51 years old; the youngest, under 10. Most of the patients are from Irrawaddy Division or Upper Burma.
The state-run mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar reported on Wednesday that a medical team led by Rangoon Region Health Department chief Dr. Hla Myint had visited the centre on July 7 and explained to the group that as there were many patients at the shelter, living in limited space, conditions could be conducive to drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), a common opportunistic infection experienced by Aids sufferers. The mouthpiece claimed that 30 patients from the centre were infected with TB.
However, Yarza, a manager at the centre, said it was run by young medical workers under instruction from specialists and that there were only a few patients who had been infected with TB. He added the centre would obey the patients’ will.
New Light of Myanmar also claimed that 30 special hospitals under the Ministry of Health were providing medical treatment to HIV/Aids patients, and that 11 NGOs and 21 INGOs had been allowed to take care of the patients in Burma. It said a total of 345 patients were receiving treatment at such hospitals in North Okkalapa, Mingaladon and Tharketa.
International organisations said on 2007 that there were about 230,000 HIV-positive people in Burma.
http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4613-official-u-turn-on-nld-aids-patient-evictions.html
