Introduction
Among the most discriminated people at any workplace are the HIV/AIDS victims. HIV is often viewed as a vice and a stigma. The stigmatization associated with HIV is one of the most undeniable threats that face the victims. With HIV being spread through sexual intercourse, it is often associated with promiscuous behavior as well as prostitution which is a factor that has made the HIV victims maintain their HIV status in the dark so as not to be discriminated against. These victims face different modes of discrimination one being alienation from social groups. Majority of the people do not interact with HIV positive people, more so because of the awkwardness that might be involved in such a social setting.
Alienation causes adverse mental torture and problems, emotional, to the victims leaving them stressed and in denial. Besides the awkwardness involved the notion that HIV positive people are weak and of unstable health is another factor that contributes to this alienation. Most of the people avoid interacting with the HIV victims since they believe that the HIV patient could need urgent medical attention in the case of an emergency and they hate to be burdened with this responsibility. There are several other reasons as to why the AIDS victims are alienated that will be discussed throughout this paper.
For ages, victims of HIV have always been discriminated against not only socially but also in several other fields in daily actions and transactions. This includes the offering of services, the issue of responsibilities in an institution or an organization, at the workplace, in schools and various other institutions. This discrimination have been for long ignored and unattended till most recently when the American With Disability Act passed a clause in the act that tackled this issue (The Center for HIV Law and Policy, 2008). The Act tackled a number of issues that are connected to the HIV victims including the confidentiality of their information, employment of the victims, health care and insurance as well as HIV testing.
The core aim of this research is to establish the role of the ADA (Americans with Disability Act) affects the HIV positive health care workers. For this reason, this research will solely focus on the Health Care workers and how the Americans with Disability Act, favors them or contains the levels of discrimination in such cases. Healthcare workers are the most affected by the levels of discrimination since majority of the people will out rightly assume that if their blood gets into contact with the HIV positive healthcare workers’, they will out rightly contract the disease. This has seen a large number of HIV positive employees in the healthcare business lose their jobs as well as their will to live. The research will cover the provisions of the ADA as well as its role in the lives of these victims and how it seeks to improve their current situation.
What is the Americans with disability act?
The Americans with disability act is a policy that was enacted in the U.S in the year 1990. This bill was ratified into a law by the former president, George H. W. Bush. The bill was passed to monitor, trim and eliminate discrimination among people with preset disabilities. This bill was similar to a bill that was passed in 1968 that was seeking to eliminate discrimination on the basis of color, race and culture. This act, though passed in 1990, it was further amended in 2008 and passed in 2009, January. It presents and dictates the rights of the disabled people and it also provides a variety of stipulations and scenarios where the discrimination occurs and tackles tem accordingly.
The act prohibits the discrimination of a qualified employee on the basis that the employee is disabled in any manner. The discriminations that have been covered in the employment clause are on employment opportunities, promotion and appraisals at the work place. Public utilities as well as public accommodation of disabled people have also been featured in the Act. The act further describes the incidences where the oppression and discriminations is evident. The government opportunities and the telecommunication sectors have also been included in the act. The act’s chief role is to ensure that the disabled people or those that are challenged health-wise are well treated and adequately served. The initial version of the Act did not contain a HIV/ AIDS clause. The amended version however put that into consideration and focused on it broadly. This act however chooses to ignore the people who are mentally challenged and weak as a result of drug and substance abuse.
HIV positive healthcare workers
There various types of healthcare workers (Alesevich et al, 2010). These range from dentists, nurses, therapists, surgical technicians, dental assistants, ambulance drivers etc. various medical procedures in the hospital involve blood. There is a high risk of the healthcare worker passing the infection on to the patient. However, some of the patients, fellow doctors and the patients’ associates may discriminate against a HIV positive medical practitioner to conduct any medical procedure on them regardless of his expertise and his knowledge base in the field. At several incidences, this is seen to be discrimination in that the practitioners always perform surgery or any other procedure with their hands covered in medically approved gloves to avoid transmission or contractions of diseases.
These are just but a few challenges that HIV positive workers, regardless of the field face. The healthcare issue caught the nation’s administration attention and thus something had to be done to unravel this issue. This led to the various states to establish various ways and regulations to manage the issue (The Center for HIV Law and Policy, 2008). A number of states addressed the issue differently and thus there were diverse regulations according to each state and address the issue. Each state had guidelines that were dissimilar and this led the federal government to setting standard guidelines that addressed the issue.
American Disability Act and Healthcare Workers
HIV/ AIDS, in the process of healthcare service provision, is an overly sensitive issue. The practitioners or the patients can either contract the disease of transmit it to the other party. This is the reason as to why majority of the patients, on knowing a doctor, nurse or any other HCW status chooses not to be treated by the practitioner. For HCWs, they have been professionally taught to handle such situations and thus it is almost impossible to find a doctor choosing not to treat a HIV positive patient (Rubin, 1996). Though the patients and choosy, to some extent it is understandable. However, certain private healthcare institutions supposedly retrench HIV positive workers or deny them employment opportunities.
Majority of the people argue that the act only covers people with disabilities and most of them believe that HIV/AIDS is not a disability. Shockingly, the disease is a form of impairment that causes physical unfitness and does not result directly from self destructive means. HIV/AIDS victims have been covered by the Act.
The Americans with disability act has covered such sensitive fields mildly. Discrimination on the basis of HIV positive status is an offence in that the discriminator ignores the expertise that the person posses on the basis that he or she is HIV positive. Such offences are liable to large fines and severe penalties. The act also provides for secrecy and confidentiality of HCWs’ HIV status. This reduces the knowledge by the patient on the practitioner’s HIV status. This act also provides that the practitioner, since he or she has the knowledge of his status, should avoid situations where the risk is way greater.
The secrecy and confidentiality agreement is one of the best clauses of the entire act. Information confidentiality for the disabled people regardless of their cultural backing is an important feature since majority of the practitioners will enjoy and will be equally treated. The various general clauses in the act too, play a major role in the elimination of any type of discrimination against disabled people. However, majority of policy and act analysts pointed out that the American with disability act does not focus on the issue greatly. This is more so because there is no specific clause that tackles the issue of healthcare workers who are HIV positive. This research has thus been derived from general rules and regulations that have later been applied to this context.
Conclusion
Prior to the amendment of the disability act, discrimination among disabled people was very high. The issue of HIV/AIDS and healthcare has always been very sensitive and discrimination among HIV/AIDS victims has forever been high. However, the Americans with Disability act came to the rescue of these victims, not only in the healthcare field but in every other field. The disability act also gave the HIV victims some special privileges in the case of confidentiality.
References
Alesevich, D., Baker, T. Bova, B. McDermed, C. & Rao, N. (2010, January, 10). The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Confidentiality of Medical Information. Retrieved on, 29th March, 2011, from www.acdl.com.
Rubin, A. (1995- 1996). HIV Discrimination among Health Care Workers in the United States and France. Retrieved on 29th March, from http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/cllpj 17&div=27&id=&page=
The Center for HIV Law and Policy. (2008, March). Guidelines for HIV-Positive Health Care Workers. Retrieved on, 29th March, 2011, from http://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/resources/view/167
U.S. Government. (n.d.) Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, As Amended. Retrieved on, 29th March, 2011, from http://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.htm
