By Larysa Nikonova, The Day
HIV-infected children have become one of today’s bitter realities. Some pity them, others fear them, still others steer clear of them. And no one knows how to help them.
Every time the boy appears the marketplace is gripped by panic.
“There’s Vasko. He’s coming!”
Women selling fatback, sunflower seeds, and homemade sausage grab their merchandise and put it in their bags. Shuttle vendors hide their imported chocolate, which Vasko especially loves.
The awe-inspiring name belongs to a 13-year boy who looks younger than his age. About 1.5 meters in height, lean and virile, he walks between the rows, picking everything he likes. To those trying to protest he stretches a hand palm up, with a fresh cut. The sight of his blood silences everybody. All of Bila Tserkva (a small town near Kyiv) knows that Vasko has AIDS. He was diagnosed at a local hospital almost a year ago. He did not mourn his fate for long but decided to turn his formidable disease into a thriving little business. Now he steals openly every marketplace, fearing no one. He needs money constantly because he is a junkie. At nine he began chewing poppy, and by twelve he was on the needle. Most likely, he got HIV from a dirty syringe...
The small city of Bila Tserkva is seventy kilometers from Kyiv and ranks first in the oblast in HIV-infection per capita, now totaling over 200 (one per thousand residents). When the local authorities became aware of the situation a special 10-bed HIV ward was opened at the local hospital for contagious diseases. Needless to say, the ward is constantly jammed as patients are brought not only from Bila Tserkva, but also from the rest of the oblast. Here one finds lying side by side habitual criminals, women, teenagers, and babies born of infected mothers.
“We can neither isolate them one from the other or prevent numerous visitors,” complains the hospital’s head physician Olena Dushak. “Many take shots and make love right in the ward. There is nothing the personnel can do to keep them from leaving whenever they please. No one knows where they go or what they do. Then they come back and we even have no right to discharge them for breaches of hospital regulations. In addition, after being diagnosed many become mentally unbalanced. They try to infect other people, cutting themselves to sprinkle blood and spitting. Whenever this happens our doctors are completely helpless. We have no armed guards and the militia is in no hurry to answer our calls; no one wants to take the risk and ride over to the AIDS ward.”
Last year Vasko made five escapes from the hospital, usually through the upper part of the ward’s window. He was caught, brought back, but he would stay only for a couple of days. When asked to help with the boy, his mother shrugged and said: “You do that, you’re paid for it.” As it is, Vasko spends most of the time hanging around town, stealing, and shooting up...
“Not so long ago the City Court heard a criminal case involving, among others, Vasyl S. (Vasko is the diminutive of Vasyl),” says Alla Vereshchak, inspector of the local juvenile delinquents service. “Evidence pointed to twenty or so thefts done by the boy. Our service requested that the judge send him to a special school. He had to be isolated somehow. However, on learning about the boy’s disease the judge decided to be ‘humane’ and placed him in his parents’ custody. Vasko’s father, unemployed, was happy: ‘Great! My boy will steal enough for himself and for a bottle for his daddy.’” By the way, Vasko is respected by other boys who consider him something like a small superman: no one can scare him and he always has money. They treat him like a leader and obey his orders. Which is most alarming...
When it gets dark boys aged between 12 and 15 gather under the windows of his ward. It is not hard to guess what they are up to. The medical personnel is faced with a dilemma. They have no right to warn them that he is HIV-infected (the diagnosis is a medical secret) and they cannot stand the sight of them taking drugs...
“Vasko, aren’t you afraid of infecting your friends?” I asked him.
“Oh, they don’t give a damn. All they want is a dose. Besides, they’ve all been shooting up so long most already have AIDS. Even if they have disposable syringes we take the shit from the same pan,” the boy replied calmly. “Well, the younger ones, they’re sure scared. You know how they find out whether or not they have it? They go to the nearest blood transfusion station and say they want to be donors. Of course, their blood is tested. See, anonymous testing costs a lot, but at the station it’s done free and if you’re okay, you even get paid for your trouble.”
Honestly, I did not believe him at first. But then I talked to Petro Verbytsky, head physician of the city’s blood transfusion center and he said that they have registered an increasing number of HIV-infected donors of late. They discovered two in 1996, and last year the number had jumped to 16. “We are worried about donor blood,” he complained. The situation is still under control, but no one knows what will happen later. We lack testing equipment and reagents. Previously we were kept supplied by the National Anti-AIDS Committee, then it started being reorganized in January and all supplies stopped. The city budget cannot afford it. And so we keep working using old reserves that will last a week or two. Just imagine what will happen if a major breakdown occurs and we’ll have a lot of casualties! Horrible! We have practically nothing left in the blood bank. God forbid, but we may be faced with a choice: lose a patient or give him untested donor blood...”
“I think that all those numerous programs and edicts about combating AIDS are far from the reality,” says Olena Dushak. “What can we do when faced with an epidemic, having no funds and no medications? People in a grave phase need expensive preparations and we don’t even have glucose. Now HIV-infected children are the worst problem. We have Serhiy aged a year and a half and Artem, 7 months. Both were born of drug-addicted mothers. We found HIV in one, the other boy is all right, so far. What future do they have? Who should care for them except the doctor? Who is actually responsible for the destinies of such children?..”
The last time Vasko was brought to the hospital was in mid-March. An ambulance picked him up lying in a narcotic coma by a supermarket...
“The boy has got worse,” senior nurse of the ward Valentyna Khailenko told me. “He used to be quite strong, never complained, he’d never get in or out of the ward other than through the window. He even took apart his bed, and it’s German, sent us as humanitarian aid. Quite a complex design, so doing what he did takes some brains, even in an adult. Well, we’re used to his antics. Sometimes we even tell each other: he’s so young, maybe his system will get over the disease. But now it looks like the virus is at play. He has begun to cough and get weak suddenly. Now the main thing is to keep him in bed. I hope to God someone will help us.
Vasko stayed in bed for a while, then disappeared again. Now he is on the militia wanted lists.
Photo by Valery Miloserdov, The Day:
“Anybody can get AIDS but not me!” most teenagers believe. And the lucky ones don’t get it
