COVID-19 RECEIVES SAME STIGMA AS HIV/AIDS

Klerksdorp
18 June 2020
David Gaanakgomo

At hospitals of South Africa Casualty Department is were all emergencies are reported. On a Monday I had a chance to spend the whole day at Tshepong hospital casualty department. This is the Provincial Academic hospital which receive most of major cases in the North West Province. It is the same scenario with the pandemic coronavirus which closed the country for almost 100 days.
Outside the casualty there are hospital staff and check-in people who brought their beloved ones. The ambulances and private cars come and drop off the sick people who need medical attention from all directions of the North West Province up until at Kuruman.

 When the ambulances come porters are there to assist, but what I noticed is that when the other ambulances arrive with their workers wearing white plastic coats the porters will run away. The only people remaining will be the one who are screening people. Then they will direct the driver to the other drop off point where the workers are also wearing white plastic coats. As time goes on the civilians joined the porters, every time when an ambulance arrive with its staff wearing white plastic coats, they will run away.
It is known that certain social distance is required, but now it is a shown case that the people who are covid-19 positive are totally isolated. It is turning into a stigma just like when the HIV/AIDS pandemic started. People were taught about avoiding to catch the sickness without discriminating anyone, but what is happening they show as if there is no care for the infected.
The South African government has a serious challenge. All it needs to do is train the trainer to train the community. The healing process will be faster because the infected will be given good care and will promote speedy recovery. I could not take the pictures as there are regulations which prohibits that.