HIV stigma killing medics

Doctors and health work­ers are dying from HIV.

This was revealed during the Fiji Medical Association (FMA) Cen­tral Mini Conference on Saturday.

National HIV Outbreak and Clus­ter Response chairperson, Dr Jason Mitchell, said: “We’ve had doctors and healthcare workers die from HIV because they’re too afraid of going on treatment because they don’t want their colleagues to know that they’re HIV positive... they also test positive of hepatitis C.

“They’re at high risk of trans­mitting that infection to their patients because a lot of them are not on treatment and their vi­ral load is extremely high and if they’re injured in the workplace, a patient could get infected with them,” Dr Mitchell said.

“This is becoming more of an is­sue, and I think we need to start talking about it as a group of col­leagues, as people who are in the medical profession about how we’re going to deal with it.”

FMA executive Dr Alipate Vaka­mocea said it was more concern­ing that medical professionals were avoiding treatment in public health facilities.

“They get tested in private clin­ics to hide their identity. But when it comes to treatment, they choose not to go to public hospi­tals because they fear their iden­tity will be revealed,” he said.

Minister for Health and Medical Services Dr Atonio Lalabalavu agreed that this was a concern, pointing to the depth of stigma and its effect.

“Doctors are human beings and are affected as well by stigma,” he said.

“How we deal with this is we must always ensure an enabling and supportive environment, if we can’t support our own work­ers, how can we support others.”

Dr Lalabalavu said the existing supportive mechanism was confi­dentiality and knowledge.

“As health workers we must al­ways value and uphold patient and doctor confidentiality and be knowledgeable about HIV.

“They just need to know that we as their co-workers have their support if they’re going through acute illness, terminal illness.

“As human beings, your caring and supportive nature should kick in as soon as you know your fellow workers is ill, and no mat­ter the extent of the illness.”

Fiji recorded 2003 new HIV diag­noses in 2025, compared with 1583 in 2024.

In 2024, Fiji recorded 126 HIV-related deaths.