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A crowd of around 300 AIDS patients
and their relatives tore down the main gate outside the Henan provincial
government office in Zhengzhou city in central China on Monday. The protesters
had originally gathered and blocked the gate to protest unmet demands for
financial assistance. “We want the government to give us some help,” said Li
Xia.
Li, like many of the protesters, was
infected during an illegal blood-buying scheme in Henan in the 1990s that was
widely considered a failure in government leadership. Under the scheme,
collectors paid villagers to donate blood, pooled the untested blood, extracted
the valuable plasma, and then re-injected it into those who sold it. Tens of
thousands of people became infected with HIV.
According to activists, local courts
reject compensation claims made by victims of the scandal, leaving them few
avenues for redress. Patients and their families regularly protest outside
health bureaus and government offices in the hope of assistance of some form.
Monday’s protesters said a local
civil affairs official told them in April the government would respond to
assistance requests in two months, but help has not been forthcoming. “We had
been waiting outside here for so long, and it was raining, but no one cared,”
said Gao Yanping. “Now they are asking us to wait another two months? We cannot
control our anger anymore.”
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
