KARACHI, May 17: Discrimination against patients of epilepsy, reproductive disorders, physical and mental disabilities and AIDS were discussed in detail at a seminar held on Saturday in connection with the International Nurses Day.
The speakers were of the view that misconceptions and myths surrounding certain diseases had caused people to discriminate against their patients.
Nurses could play a leading role in disseminating correct information about these diseases so that stigma unnecessarily attached to them could be removed.
Speaking at the scientific session of the seminar, organized by the Aga Khan University, Nausheen Saleem said about 10 Pakistanis in 1,000 suffered from epilepsy which was caused by brief disturbances in the brain’s electrical activity.
She said some people thought, wrongly of course, that epileptic fits were brought about by devils and demons.
Epilepsy interfered with a person’s education. Decisions regarding a person’s marriage and his or her having children were directly affected by this disease.
She was of the opinion that it was the nurses’ duty to keep information about an epileptic person confidential at all times. Nurses were in a position to create awareness about the disease’s treatment by providing the right kind of information about it to the patient’s family.
In her presentation on HIV/AIDS, Dr Nabila Khan said a research study had found that doctors and hospitals felt they were ill-equipped to handle the disease. The medical community by and large tended to reject the people who were at considerable risk of contacting HIV or full-blown AIDS, including sex workers and truckers.
The doctors and paramedical staff tended to overestimate the importance of routes of transmission of HIV from person to person, thereby tending to be nervous when handling people with the virus, pointed out the doctor who belongs to the Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid.
Fauzia Arif, a lady health visitor, and Arusa Lakhani spoke at length on the problems faced by children with mental and physical disabilities. They said children had disabilities due to complications before birth, during it or after it.
They said discrimination was not only the use of wrong word or action but also the according of less than normal respect to a certain individual. They underscored the need for the society to create opportunities to rehabilitate the people having the said disabilities.
Nurses, they stressed, could play a facilitating role in this regard. They could counsel the parents, without which the disabled cannot be rehabilitated, and also create an awareness about how the burden of the problem could be lessened.
The disabled children could improve considerably if the society allowed them to play meaningful roles, they added.
Amina Pirwani, in her presentation on infertility, said the problem was common among women over 30. She said the problem wounded a woman’s body, mind as well as her soul.
Ms Amina said infertility was deemed to be women’s problem even though it was not exclusively because of the female section of the society. “The male factor accounts for up to 40 per cent of the infertility cases,” she said.
The female factor also accounted for 40 per cent of the cases. She stressed the need to dispel myths engulfing the issue. “This is a medical problem and not something else.”
If allowed to play their due role, nurses could help lessen the emotional burden of the disease. Treatment was also available. She urged the nurses to be compassionate towards all kinds of patients, especially those suffering from reproductive disorders.
Raisa Kausar, in her presentation on breast cancer, said up to 42 per cent of all cancer patients in Pakistan had this ailment. Globally, it was the third most common cancer.
Many women denied suffering from breast cancer due to stigma attached to it.
The removal of a breast, coupled with chemotherapy, resulted in a woman becoming less attractive in her own eyes, said Kausar.
“This lowering of one’s self in her own eyes caused her to become isolated and to shun the company of others.” After the breasts are removed, some women felt she had lost a quarter of her body.
Husbands’ responsibilities, she said, increased because they were not only supposed to foot the bill but also to provide counselling and support to the suffering women.
Meanwhile, speaking at the inaugural session of the seminar, Sindh’s minister for population welfare and women’s development maintained that it was because of the low status accorded to women and stigma attached to poverty that sufferers were exposed to discrimination, adds APP.
Dr Saeeda Malik underscored the need for changing the public mind-set through similar seminars, above all through concerted efforts to raise literacy rate.
The minister appreciated the role played by Aga Khan School of Nursing and said it was setting a new trend based on quality training and professional competency.
Dr. Saeeda Malik also commended the AKU for introducing masters level training programmes on nursing.
Earlier, Dr. Mohammad Ashraf Memon, Acting Programme Coordinator, Sindh AIDS Control Programme, in his key-note address mentioned that no less than 42 million people, including children and adults, were estimated to be inflicted with the diseases till December 2002 while five million new cases of HIV were feared to be added on an yearly basis.
