HIV Forum

Froix · Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:02 am Post subject: **Confidentiality**

http://www.paralegaladvice.org.za/docs/chap12/03.html

Telling a patient's sexual partner

A health care worker may not tell the patient's sexual partner that the patient has HIV, unless the partner appears to be at risk because the patient refuses to practise safer sex. The health care worker must counsel the patient on the need to tell their sexual partner and to practise safer sex. The health care worker must then warn the patient that if he or she does not tell their sexual partner or practise safer sex, then the health care worker will have to tell the partner about the person's HIV status.

Does this mean if the patient agrees to practice safe sex, the partner does not need to know?
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Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. ~Grandma Moses

Simplyme · Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:18 am Post subject:

I am not sure if it is so in all states and countries but if you are found to have knowingly slept with someone unprotected while infected with HIV or AIDS without disclosing it and they contract it you can be charged with I believe it is premeditated murder.

Froix · Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:28 am Post subject:

I don't claim to know what state of mind I would be in if I contracted HIV this way but I don't think the charge would be much of a consolation or a case of justice served. I can only imagine it'd be worse if it happened with someone you loved.
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Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. ~Grandma Moses

mabel normand · Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject:

I only have the perspective of how I conduct my life. If I were to contract HIV it would be because I had been betrayed by someone I felt close to. I would not be able to inflict that kind of pain on another person. I would have to tell anybody I became involved with.

Simplyme · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject:

xiflada · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:28 pm Post subject:

I believed some people have been indeed charged with murder because of knowingly infecting others.

Wikipedia says " Anthony Whitfield is an American male, convicted in 2004 in Olympia, Washington on 17 counts of first-degree assault for knowingly exposing multiple sexual partners to HIV. He was diagnosed with the disease in 1992 after being sexually assaulted in an Oklahoma prison."

How sad!

bizofwords · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:22 pm Post subject: **Re: Confidentiality**

Froix · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject:

That's Human Rights in America for you. Fear of getting sued gets priority over doing the right thing. To be fair though, what is the right thing to do in this case? Question

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Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. ~Grandma Moses

Simplyme · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:52 am Post subject:

All I can say if what if your sister-brother-daughter-or son was the other partner...the one not being told?

lavern · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:34 pm Post subject:

Why not tell? This could lead to another and then another victim of the disease. Let say, maybe the health worker must be willing to counsel the infected person to tell the truth about the situation.

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Confidentiality