Pattaya Gay Festival

May I draw readers attention to a personal posting on Baht Stop Board at the moment
regarding Pattay Gay Festival.
The original posting which gave rise to the statememt (at the moment 5 pages long) will also be found there.

May I draw readers attention to a personal posting on Baht Stop Board at the moment regarding Pattay Gay Festival. The original posting which gave rise to the statememt (at the moment 5 pages long) will also be found there.Why would anyone bother?

[lonelywombat]

May I draw readers attention to a personal posting on Baht Stop Board at the moment
regarding Pattay Gay Festival.
The original posting which gave rise to the statememt (at the moment 5 pages long) will also be found there.

A link might help us find it...

http://www.baht-stop.com/forums/index.p ... topic=5036 (http://www.baht-stop.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5036)

I read Michael Burchall/geneman's letter on Baht Stop concerning the PGF and Pattaya fundraisers with some interest. The argument over whether "we know that some businessmen were also making a small profit" (as he put it) should affect a decision to support the PGF or not appears to be never ending. My view, for what little it is worth, is that as long as the good that is being done outweighs the commercial profit and as long as there are no better, similar, charities around, then a charity is worth supporting - in the case of PGF I am sure this is the case, as I am equally sure it is not with certain other well-known Pattaya charities. That does not, however, make those profiting from such events any more respectable or deserving of respect - it simply makes them a necessary evil.

The point which drew my attention was his view of "this particularly low season" and "the lack of tourists and bar staff" and its affect, as he saw it, on those with HIV:

To my certain knowledge many of the staff have discovered their adverse medical condition and have gone home to die without medical treatment, preferring that to the shame their families might be put to in having a victim in their midst. They say nothing of their condition and finally die in agony when just a few pills taken daily would see an immediate recovery and lead to an active life of long duration.

While I bow to his far greater knowledge with PGF and Heartt 2000, his point seems to totally contradict itself, and it also contradicts my own experience (which, I am relieved to say, is relatively limited).

If those with HIV "have gone home to die without medical treatment" then surely "their families" are going to have "a victim in their midst" and it is their friends and peers they are avoiding?

I personally know a number of "working" Thais who have/had HIV and who are cases in point.

My "ex" was identified as HIV+ around 8 years ago. None of his friends know this and he has not had any follow up tests/treatment, despite my encouragement in the past to do so, on the basis that he will do so when he "needs to". When he told me four years ago that his wife was seven months pregnant I persuaded him that for her sake and that of his baby he should tell her, which he did. I arranged for them both to see a specialist, but they were "too busy". One year later she was pregnant again and had another son (also apparently healthy). Same advice, same reaction, same total lack of interest in safe sex/responsibility, etc, by both of them. In his case the only thing that surprises me is that having been a glue sniffer for most of the last 20 years, and an alcoholic for all of it, that he is still alive at all.

Last year my partner's brother's ex-girlfriend, who had become a close friend of my partner (who is 100% gay) left Pattaya to go home after she became "ill". One month later she died, leaving a young son (and a mother who lived in Germany, who visited her bedside for 5 minutes, and could not have cared less). Although the words HIV or Aids were never mentioned, this was simply unspoken - when I last saw her, just before she left, she was looking tired and a little drawn, nothing more. She never once tried to have any treatment.

My partner's brother (who is 100% straight) had left Pattaya several months before, but was certainly subsequently aware of her death. After working in BBB he had worked for some time assisting Dr Seur (Heartt 2000) in his clinic so was well aware of the effect of both HIV and the treatment available, having helped " victims carried in at death's door" and later " seen the same people walk in looking like you or me " just as Michael Burchall describes and as he had described them to his brother (my partner); despite this he has never had an HIV test and his new wife is totally unaware of any of this.

One month ago one of my partner's oldest friends, living in Bangkok, phoned him to say that he was a "bit ill" and going home to get better. A month or so before, when he had last see him, he had lost a little weight and was slightly pale, but he was still well. He was highly intelligent, spoke very good English and made a lot of internet "contacts", many of whom sent him money without ever meeting him - he visited farangs in both Australia and Switzerland who arranged his flights, visas, expenses, etc, also before they had met in person. Yesterday my partner called his mobile, which was answered by his mother who said that he was "sleeping" and would not be able to answer the phone anymore; she suggested he call another friend who had visited him a few days before, which he did. The words HIV or Aids, again, have never been mentioned although he is clearly in a coma, in the last stages of Aids with only days or hours to go, and he had known he was HIV+ for over a year (having evidently told his mother). He had never tried to have treatment.

One week ago one of my partner's friends from his home village who had not seen him for several years telephoned him to say that he was leaving his job as a waiter at a restaurant near Si Racha to come to Pattaya to work as a waiter/host in a gay bar. He has known he is HIV+ for over a year, as do his family and close friends (including my partner). He has been receiving medical treatment, has put back the weight he lost and now looks fully healthy. He has to be careful to take his drugs exactly as prescribed and has to return regularly to his local hospital for tests and a three months supply of drugs, which are free under the Government health scheme. So far nobody else in Pattaya knows he is HIV+.

Why is it that out of these six, only one has sought treatment - and he is probably the least intelligent/educated/informed (as we would see it) of all of them?

I have no idea - I can only suggest it has something to do with his trusting his family and his friends to support him, whereas the others would, literally, prefer to "die in agony" with their family rather than risk trusting their friends and getting treatment.

The only conclusion I can draw from my own, limited, experience is that the key is not only treatment or education, but acceptance, which will be far harder to achieve.