New Vision (Kampala) - December 3, 2001
Paul Waibale Senior

Any suggestion that compulsory testing for HIV/AIDS should be introduced in Uganda is, to say the least, absurd. But a suggestion to that effect emanating from the medical profession is much worse than that. It is, in any submission, an outrageous violation of professional etiquette, the purpose of which cannot be justified by any stretch of traditional presumptions abundant in the field of public health.

Against that backdrop, the opposition to the doctors' proposition that members of the "learned" profession introduce such measures occasioned no surprise to me. In fact, it is my contention that one does not have to be learned to appreciate the obvious reality that the doctors' proposal is an exercise in theoretical prescription, which is in practical terms a disgraced non-starter.

Perhaps the only glimmer surrounding the doctors' proposition is the fact that it has a Biblical replica whereby Jewish lepers had to ring bells while walking along roads and declare the state of their health by loud proclamations. The motivating factor was the disturbing situation that there was then no known cure for leprosy and the knowledge that contact with a leper or items he or he uses, such as clothes or utensils, was a sure method of contracting the disease.

In my submission, the doctors' proposition to institute compulsory testing for HIV/AIDS and label those infected is anchored in the same dock. The common denominator is that as was the case with leprosy in Jesus' era, there is no cure for HIV/AIDS and communication is through intimate contact with an infected person. So, the doctors, like the Jewish authorities are advocating a system of screening to identify HIV/AIDSD victims and condemn them as social outcasts.

Interestingly, doctors are bound by their own professional ethics to keep that transpires between them and their patients private. It follows that what they are advocating is incompatible with the norms that govern the conduct of members of noble professional of medicine. The argument that they are doing that to save the country from the escalation of the AIDS epidemic does not hold any water. It is like telling priests to reveal information received in confession, or lawyers to disclose admissions made to them by their clients, or journalists to unveil sources of their information, under the guise of promoting the preservation of law and order.

According to the "learned friends," as lawyers fondly refer to themselves, the doctors proposal constitutes a violation of the rights of individuals which are enshrined in Uganda's constitution of these doctors' proposal would make it impossible for AIDS victims to live with dignity. Who can, in a society where contracting AIDS is taboo, afford to live a normal life when an HIV label is stack to his chest or wherever it may be?

According to the Uganda Ministry of Health and various organisations dealing with AIDS in Uganda, it is possible for AIDS victims to live a normal life for long periods - as long as ten years or even longer. How can that situation be maintained when victims are being harassed with compulsory checks and identification labels?

But that is not the only reason why the doctors' proposal has, like a still-born baby, no opportunity to see the light of day. There are many others of which I will mention only a couple or so.

If you enact a law requiring everybody of the 23 million in Uganda to be tested for HIV/AIDS, what provision will make for dealing with the hundreds of thousands of Ugandans who will refuse, ignore, or neglect to turn up for the test? Will you end them to jail? Would such punitive measure be fair? In any case, would there be enough jails to accommodate the overwhelming number of prisoners?

Such a situation is not too far-fetched to be envisaged. You only have to consider the fact th at despite the introduction of UPE a large number of school-age children are holed in the villages or busy patrolling street in urban areas to realise the magnitude of a compulsory testing exercise involving a population of 23 million. Then recall the number of children that remained despite the exhaustive polio vaccination campaign that was amounted and you will understand what type of problem anybody trying to implement the doctors' proposition will face.

Even if the law for implementing that proposal was made, the government would not have sufficient money to fund the exercise nor sufficient trained manpower to execute it.

Let doctors concentrate on maximizing their efforts to give medical attention in relation to HIV/AIDS to those who voluntarily make themselves available rather than leap the theoretical (or is it theatrical?) ideas that can materialise only in dreamland.
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