Aust. hospital bans A.I.D.S. patients

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 8

Aust. hospital bans A.I.D.S. patients

NZPA-AAP Melbourne The State Healtlr Minister, Caroline Hogg, will seek urgent talks with Melbourne’s Freemasons’ Hospital over the hospital’s decision to ban A.I.D.S. patients. Mrs Hogg said yesterday she was extremely surprised and disappointed at the ban, but wanted to hear the hospital’s side of the story. “I don’t want to sound abusive to the hospital, but it is the only one in Australia that’s done anything like this — I sincerely hope no other hospitals in Australia follow their lead,” she told a news conference. Mrs Hogg said an amendment to the Equal Opportunity Act would make discrimination

against A.I.D.S. patients illegal from Sunday — but she doubted whether she had any powers as a Minister to enforce any other ban. The Freemasons’ Hospital announced yesterday it would not admit A.I.D.S. patients, and patients found to be HIV-positive after admission would be transferred. The Australian Medical Association’s Victoria branch said yesterday it fully supported doctors who refused to treat A.I.D.S. sufferers. The general manager of Freemasons’ Hospital, Norman Wittingslow, said the hospital had made its decision on the recommendation of its medical advisory committee, comprising eminent physi-

cians and surgeons. The committee believed these patients would be better managed by such institutions as Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, where facilities and appropriately-trained staff were available, he said. Fairfield Hospital’s director of virology, Dr lan Gust, said voluntary testing of hospital patients was a simple compromise that would satisfy both high-risk groups and doctors and health care workers. Such tests would satisfy the legitimate concern of doctors and health care workers who feared infection, but it would have to be voluntary and totally confidential to protect the interests of A.I.D.S. virus sufferers.