HIV Aids & Social Work Healthcare - Essay Example

? Summary “Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a sickness of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)”. The sickness interferes with the immune scheme making individual with AIDS much more likely to obtain infections, together with opportunistic diseases and tumors that do not influence people with working immune systems. This vulnerability gets poorer as the disease continues(Felissa R. Lashley, 2009 ). “HIV is transformed in numerous ways, such as anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion or contaminated hypodermic needles, switch over amid mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. It can be transferred on by any contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a material fluid that has the disease in it, such as the blood, semen, vaginal solution, spreseminal fluid, or breast milk from a impure individual”. The symptoms of AIDS are chiefly the result of circumstances that do not usually build up in individuals with healthy immune systems. Most of these situations are infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that are usually controlled by the essentials of the immune system that HIV damages(Nancy Boyd-Franklin, 1995 ). The virus and disease are often referred to collectively as HIV/AIDS. The sickness is a main health problem in numerous parts of the world, and is measured a pandemic, a disease eruption that is not only present over a great area but is dynamically spreading. “In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) expected that there are 33.4 million individuals internationally existing with HIV/AIDS, with 2.7 million new HIV diseases per year and 2.0 million annual demises due to AIDS”. There is no alternative to life when it comes to the disease like HIV/AIDS. AIDS has been under research since the times it was discovered. It has been rated as one of the most fatal sickness on the planet because of the truth that it has no cure but the precautions. AIDS is the type of ailment that takes over the immune system of the body. It hinders and stops the process of auto formation of antibodies against the specific antigens. As a result, even a mere cold can take the life of a patient. The disease is an epidemic and it spreads readily through sexual contact(Karen Saucier Lundy, 2009 ). In many urbanized countries, there is a relationship between AIDS and homosexuality or bisexuality, and this connection is correlated with superior levels of sexual prejudice such as anti-homosexual attitudes. There is also an apparent involvement between AIDS and all male-male sexual behavior, together with sex between uninfected men. This has been one of the very controversial issues for the researchers, doctors and the scientists since the quantity of patients with this syndrome is increasing gradually. While the research continues, millions and millions of patients are suffering from this disease to the present day. The global health experts argue that the treatment of the AIDS is far too expensive to save human lives. However, many developed countries have reached the level of saving the life of one out of ten people suffering from AIDS(Borne, 2005 ). Medical science has been after treating AIDS for a long time. Many drugs have been invented to minimize the effect of the disease of ceasing the formation of the antibodies and in many cases the antibodies are being introduced into the body of the host. But there is an significant fact that backs up the treatment of AIDS and that is to use nutritional and social support along with the allopathic medication. There had been seen a very progressive attitude of showing non-adherence to the medicines in case of the aids patients. Therefore, the social health care workers and organizations had to be called for to play their role in the noble cause of treating the patients suffering from aids(Karen Saucier Lundy, 2009 ). The social worker’s research probes into each and every region of a patient’s everyday life and confronts the challenges that the client (patient) has to face every day. Social workers, however, face many daunting questions. Some major questions like, “what are the strategies that would most successfully help the aids patients to comply with their medication, how much medical knowledge is required by the social workers in order to counsel the HIV patients and decide for the best course to be taken when the ideas of the client come into contradiction with that of the doctor’s advice” have to be answered before starting the social work healthcare in relation to that of the medicinal treatment regime(Seckinelgin, 2008 ). International Agreements about HIV UNFPA has signed several International agreements on HIV/AIDS which includes Call to Action: Towards an HIV-free and AIDS-free generation, Political Declaration on HIV, ICPD Program of Action and many others. The objective of such structure agreements is to make procurement of consultant services as well-organized and useful as probable. The competencies of each of these networks vary across different line of work. Issues Related To Social Work Health Care As the disease spread out, it gave rise to many social, psychosocial and psychological issues in order to deal with the society. Most important of all is the psychological issues. These issues arise in the families having children who are HIV positive or among those who are adult patients, among the children themselves when they are facing AIDS as a disease, among the social members who come in regular contact with those suffering from AIDS. The health care workers have to be prepared for these issues and make an agenda addressing the solutions to these issues. Usually it is seen that the families who have children having aids are restricted to their homes(Larry M. Gant, 1998). They feel a shame of getting along with people normally. They feel themselves culpable of a crime if they have any family member who is a long-sufferer of aids. The healthcare workers have to see whether the focus of their counseling be the individuals or the entire families. Moreover, the vogue of preparing men to understand the lasting effects of this disease and make them realize that they have to protect their women is another important psychological issue that the social health care workers have to take into the account. The major cause of the spread of disease is the sexual contact. It is most widespread in the areas of the world with low ethical values. Therefore to educate those men and women in protecting the environment against this hazardous disease is the foremost obligation of the social health care workers(Larry M. Gant, 1998). It has been observed that the blood transfusion is also an active cause of catching aids. And those who catch aids this way are more difficult to handle because they know that they have made no mistake but still they have been stung by the virus. Such patients fall into serious psychological trauma of having the nightmares of disgrace. They confine them in the rooms of their houses. They think themselves of being convicted to a very serious crime. This type of outlook is the root reason of homicides in the United States of America. The social healthcare workers have to take this attitude as a challenge for themselves and devise the style of counseling to take these patients out of this guilt conscious feeling. The psychometrics of the patients suffering from aids show that the people who have aids automatically draw themselves a line that creates a bridge between them and the people who are normal. They tend to draw themselves away from all the social circles which leaves them in darkness and lone. These psychological issues have to be taken under extreme care by the social health care workers because the persons with aids are members of the society just as the other people living in it(Charles Zastrow, 2009 ). Role of Individual in Health Care Of HIV Aids “The role of an individual in the social work for the AIDS is very important. The social organizations have made teams to address the patients who are suffering from the disease and who operate in an environment where there are people with aids. Social work with groups is a broad domain of direct social work practice. Social workers work with a variety of teams who have an expertise in dealing with the variety of issues arising out of the aids environment”. A common conceptualization of the social work can be drawn from the words of Klein when he says that, “a social system consisting of two or more persons who stand in status and role relationships with one another and possessing a set of norms or values which regulate the attitudes and behaviors of the individual members in matters of consequence to the group. A group is a statement of relationship among persons…Therefore, social systems have structure and some degree of stability…interaction…reciprocity…interdependence and …group bond. Open social systems do not exist in a vacuum; they are part of and transact with… their surroundings”. This helps to clarify the role of an individual or a citizen in the reduction of the psychosocial and psychological issues heading up as a result of AIDS(Felissa R. Lashley, 2009 ). There has been no professional organization other than the National Association for Social Work in India, who has done a great deal of work in the area of AIDS. This organization passed a bill two years ago that approved the social treatments of the aids patients and argued that these patients have a right to live normally like every other normal human being. The only thing required is there adherence to their medical treatment. The social work influences the care teams working with the patients of aids. The social work induces in them the spirit of collaborating with the patients and makes them feel at ease and a part of the existing society. It was a general belief that the aids were caught from touch and from eating the food with or leftover by the patients of aids. Through social work, the care teams managed to demolish this belief and highlighted the fact that touching, eating and even living with the patients of aids was no danger. The only danger was to forgo the precautionary measures when it came to blood transfusion and sexual contact. Intervention of social work with aids has been very clear with the results. It is all through the social work that the people have now started to take aids just like any other disease in which a patient is normal as long as he is living his life in normal living conditions(Felissa R. Lashley, 2009 ). There is no proper relationship that could be built between the HIV aids and that of the social workers’ social counseling but it is apparent that the effects of social counseling have been very optimistic in changing the attitudes of these patients towards life. Psychological Issues and Social Work The culture imposes a great pressure on the personalities of the people. When it comes to aids, it is the common culture of the society that emphasizes the individuals to draw a barrier between themselves and the patients of aids. The ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation and the socioeconomic status of the human beings also has a great impact on the psychological uplift of the people facing the deadly disease. There has been a great role of different not for profit organizations to help the patients of aids lead a normal life and to educate the people of the society to spare these individuals as the regular members of the society and flourish along with the changes in their lives(Larry M. Gant, 1998). The social economic status of the people is always a great factor in determining which health condition they adopt. A low status quo will definitely make them prone to the disgraces like HIV aids. Therefore it is the foremost obligation of the social workers to minimize the role of these influencing factors and control the psychological and behavioral trauma resulting from this deadly disease. The sexual orientation in many countries is major factor contributing to the spread of HIV aids. In many countries there are social laws abounding the people to have limitation on their sexual activities. Moreover in many countries, sex education has been made a social workshop in order to educate the people to avoid the spread of this disease at large. Age and gender again play a vital role in this context. Many organizations have been arguing that there should be bounds clearing the age of the independent individuals. The school children should be checked upon by the teachers as well as their parents in order to make certain that they are not occupied in any unprincipled activity that might affect their health and destroy their social status. Religion is the greatest restriction that comes in the way of this destructive disease. World over, the different religious scholars have been in coherence of their decisions that the spread of this deadly disease be stopped by the use of religious scriptures(Nancy Boyd-Franklin, 1995 ). Religion in no part of the world allows the spread of diseases and the death of human race no matter how it would be happening. Therefore, the social workers have a very important argument in the form of religious bounds to educate the people in saving the mankind form HIV aids. Social Work’s Ethical Issues Related To HIV Aids Ethics have been a part of an organized society since the times when the concept of the society emerged. Every society has its own rules and regulations so as to deal with the phantoms attacking the prestige of the society at any time and from anywhere. As far as the issue of AIDS is concerned, it has been a great problem for the organizations to convince the care teams to address the issue of HIV aids because the biggest carrier was a man to woman or a woman to man. Even today, when there has been much researched literature on the HIV aids and its remedial measures, the ethics do not allow the people to go near this issue so as to avoid being a part of the greater controversy. In an editorial, there had been a highlighted fact that the social workers who worked for addressing the social phantom HIV aids faced a very serious reaction from the upper social class(Gracious Thomas, 1997 ). Their working and their meetings with the patients were not appreciated as the upper class graded the patients out of the normal individuals’ social circle. This view harmed the social appearance of the workers themselves. But with the passage of time, many organizations took challenges of addressing the issue of HIV aids boldly and started educating the society to prevent its members form the claws of this deadly menace. Now a day, there is a lot of admiration for those who challenge to work in the field of treatment of the patients of HIV aids either through medicines or through the work of the social workers for HIV aids patients(Gracious Thomas, 1997 ). Conclusion “The religious thought to stop the reaching of AIDS according to a report by American health expert Matthew Hanley titled The Catholic Church and the Global Aids Crisis argues that civilizing changes are required as well as a re-emphasis on loyalty within marriage and sexual self-denial outside of it”. People with HIV disease should be in the care of a physician who is practiced in treating the disease. All individual with HIV should be directed about evading the extending of the disease. Infected individuals are also well-informed about the infection process, and efforts are carried out to perk up the quality of their life(Seckinelgin, 2008 ). References Borne, F. v. (2005 ). Trying to survive in times of poverty and AIDS:: women and multiple partner sex in Malawi. Het Spinhuis. Charles Zastrow, K. K.-A. (2009 ). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment. Cengage Learning. Felissa R. Lashley, J. D. (2009 ). The person with HIV/AIDS: nursing perspectives. Springer Publishing Company. Gracious Thomas, N. P. (1997 ). AIDS, social work and law. Rawat Publications. Karen Saucier Lundy, S. J. (2009 ). Community health nursing: caring for the public's health. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Larry M. Gant, P. A. (1998). Social workers speak out on the HIV/AIDS crisis: voices from and to African American communities. Greenwood Publishing Group. Nancy Boyd-Franklin, G. L. (1995 ). Children, families, and HIV/AIDS: psychosocial and therapeutic issues. Guilford Press. Seckinelgin, H. (2008 ). International politics of HIV/AIDS: global disease - local pain. Routledge. Read More