SINGAPORE, Dec 10 (AFP) - Singapore's ministry of health has taken the position that nursing homes, hospices and community hospitals can admit people suffering from AIDS, the Sunday Times said.

Previously, these institutions were uncertain on whether they should shelter people suffering from AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) on the grounds it is a communicable disease.

The health ministry's stated its position in response to a query from Singapore's leading newspaper on shelter options for AIDS sufferers.

Health care institutions will get the same subsidies for AIDS patients as they do for their other patients, the report said.

Activists have complained that a growing numbers of AIDS sufferers in affluent Singapore are being left homeless and without treatment because of discrimination.

The newspaper had earlier reported on the plight of a man who made a corner of a disused shopping centre his home -- living there because of social rejection arising from the stigma that comes with AIDS.

On Sunday, the Times said a woman executive of a software firm has offered a room in her highrise flat to the homeless man, whose identity has not been revealed.

"All I ask is that he is not a drug abuser and is a clean and tidy person," the 58-year-old woman said.

Leo Yee Sin, clinical director of the Communicable Disease Centre, said the health ministry's guideline "is useful to me as we can now quote it when we approach nursing homes, hospices and community hospitals to ask for help.

"We will help health-care workers in these institutions to allay their fears when it comes to caring for people with AIDS -- we'll be more than happy to do that."

Most AIDS patients return to their families upon discharge from the communicable disease centre's 25-bed ward for AIDS patients, but each year about 10 are rejected and end up homeless, the newspaper said.

Officials of hospices and nursing homes expressed surprised at the health ministry's position and said they would have to discuss it with their boards.

One pointed out that nursing homes have admission criteria which disqualified people with communicable diseases.

Singapore had earlier lifted a rule requiring that people who die of AIDS must be buried or cremated within 24 hours. Families of AIDS victims now have three days to hold a funeral, following a successful lobby by the Action for AIDS organisation.

Singapore's health ministry however has set strict guidelines for the handling of AIDS-related deaths, including the use of bodybags for unembalmed corpses and sealed coffins.

Embalming by a selected group of experts must be carried out at the isolation mortuary of the department of forensic medicine.

001210
AF001293

Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2000 - All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission..  http://www.afp.com/