Sacking Persons With HIV From Work Is A Violation Of Their Rights

Nuhu Musah, N/R HIV Focal Person

The Focal Person on HIV and AIDS in charge of the Northern Region of Ghana Nuhu Musah, has asked persons living with the virus (PLHIV) and have been victimized or sacked at their places of work as a result of disclosing their status to lodge a formal complaint with their respective district or regional focal persons to deal with their grievances.

Speaking to Savannahnews in an interview after a programme by the Heart-To-Heart (H2H) campaign tour group from the Ghana AIDS Commission in Tamale, he said it was unlawful and an affront on the basic human rights of PLHIV anywhere in the country to be relieved of their jobs.

“If anybody loses his/her job because his/her employer found out that he/she has HIV, the person should come and complain to me,” he beckoned, adding “We [HIV Focal Persons] are there because of them. I will take it up seriously and make sure that the person is reinstated. It’s a crime and an abuse of one’s human right to be sacked because of HIV”, Mr. Musah maintained.

The H2H group who are also HIV Ambassadors is currently touring the whole nation to educate the populace on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and how they could live positive lifestyles without acquiring it, citing abstinence from sex, avoid sharing sharp objects such as blades, needles among others with other people and using condom when having sex with an unknown partner for the first time. 

Furthermore, the group of four beautiful and handsome energetic young women and a man of God who have been living with the virus for about a decade now, would also encourage people to regularly go for HIV test and also support those who have contracted the virus to seek treatment at government hospitals.

For his part, Secretary to the National Association of Persons Living With HIV (NAP+) Northern Regional chapter Langa Amadu, complained that of the over 790 members of the group, about 85 percent mostly women are unemployed. 

According to him, considering the fact that they have to eat before taking their medication, it would be imperative for government to find members some jobs to do so that at the end of the month they can earn some income in order to cater for themselves.

Mr. Langa appealed to the government to consider engaging them under the sanitation module of the National Youth Employment Programme, otherwise hardship could force some of their members to go into prostitution to seek livelihood.

He also asked the government to speed up with the process of including the antiretroviral drugs in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Drug List, because most PLHIV still could not afford the GH¢5.00 a month for the drugs.

Meanwhile, Reverend John Azumah, a member of the H2H called on religious and traditional leaders across the country to support the work of the group by also spreading the message about HIV to their followers.

According to him, HIV is not a spiritual disease as some men of God belief and asked those [men of God] who have been discouraging or preventing their congregation from going to hospital to seek medication to stop.

Some of those men of God who stand on the pulpit and tell their church members to fast for God to heal them of the virus, he said, also have the HIV. “I am their chairman. They accuse me of being a disgrace to the Christian community in the country just because I have disclosed my status to the general public. However, when they need the drugs, they come to me to get some for them. This is hypocrisy”, Rev. Azumah decried.