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The state's onerous procedure of administering HIV / AIDS testing threatens the lives of New Yorkers, according to a famous doctor who has been following the disease for decades.
Diane Futterman, director of the Adolescent AIDS Program at the Montefiore Children's Hospital, explains that the requirements for prior consent and patient notification for such screening are wider than for hepatitis C or other sexually transmitted disease.
It insists that the legislation impose systematic or mandatory HIV testing and facilitate the application of the rules on prior notification and consent.
"The unique requirements for consent and notification for HIV testing were created at another time with the good intention of protecting the rights of patients, but today these requirements are detrimental to the health of patients." , said Futterman during a recent presentation to the AIDS Advisory of the Ministry of Health. Advice.
Under current legislation, HIV testing is voluntary and requires the consent of the patient. Before being offered a test, a doctor or other health professional should provide patients with information about HIV / AIDS.
Futterman cited patient studies at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx as proof that the requirements are counter-productive, harmful and potentially life-threatening.
One study found that 80% of "undiagnosed" HIV clients in Montefiore had not been tested during their first visits to the emergency department.
Another Montefiore study found that 59% of patients eligible for hepatitis C testing had received it, compared with only 40% of those eligible for HIV testing.
"The only operational difference in these tests is the consent / counseling requirement," Futterman said. "We miss people."
AIDS is still deadly – although it was not the death penalty that it was a generation ago because of drugs to treat it. But HIV must be detected to be treated.
About 15% of HIV-positive people have not been diagnosed. According to Futterman, 50% of young people do not know they are HIV-positive.
In 2016, 2,052 people in New York had recently been diagnosed with HIV – the lowest rate since the 1980s epidemic. The Big Apple has 109,512 people living with HIV.
Advocates of the more systematic HIV testing proposal include, according to Futterman, the gay men's crisis, Housing Works, the Latin American AIDS Commission, and the National AIDS Black Leadership Commission.
The chair of the Health Committee of the Assembly, Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan), said he was considering passing a bill "to remove the rules on notice and HIV consent ", even though a patient would always have the right to refuse.
"It would look more like" routine "medical tests," said Gottfried.
Yet not everyone is on board. Civil libertarians worry about privacy because of persistent stigma around the disease.
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