Wang Baoyi and the China HIV/AIDS Community-based Organization Network: Fighting discrimination against People living with HIV/AIDS in China

People living with HIV/AIDS  in China face wide-spread discrimination in health care settings. Though Prime Minister Li Keqiang recently publicly expressed support for PLHA, in early 2013 a patient in Tianjin had to remove his HIV positive status from his medical records before he could undergo life-saving surgery. This illustrates failure to address medical discrimination on a systemic level.

Wang Baoyi is the secretariat for the China HIV/AIDS Community-based Organization Network. The CBO network is the largest network of community based HIV/AIDS organizations in China and counts among its members organizations of sex workers, men who have sex with men, and people living with HIV/AIDS and hemophilia. In China, discrimination in health care setting has become one of the major barriers that prevent People living with HIV/AIDS from accessing universal, life-saving medical service.

A main initiative of the CBO Network is fighting medical discrimination. In its course of work, the CBO Network has organized training workshops for organizations in Henan and Hebei Provinces, and launched an initiative highlighting doctors willing to treat people living with HIV, the “Sunshine Doctors.”  Baoyi took part in a roundtable discussion on medical discrimination and gave an oral presentation titled “The Role of Community-based Organizations in Fighting Medical Discrimination against People Living with HIV/AIDS in China” at a general assembly titled “Understanding and Eliminating Stigma and Discrimination in Healthcare Settings.”

This piece is the third in a series introducing you to the partners that Asia Catalyst is supporting through scholarships, strategy and translation to attend the 11th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. The Congress brought together over 4,000 delegates from 22 countries in the region in Bangkok this month.