ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

250Rodica ŢuguiB. Perceptions and attitudes: behaviors toward the ones infected with“HIV” virus or suffering of “AIDS”The participants at the focus groups were asked to evaluate the urgentmatter of AIDS in comparison with other social problems of the Romaniansociety. Most of them have considered that it needs very special attention, eventhough by the number of existing cases, it affects a small number of people incomparison with other problems 22 , such as domestic violence or alcholism andeven poverty. But regarding the “HIV spectrum”, participants worry about itsconsequences, its lethal consequences 23 . The largest danger is of contaminationand the spreading of the disease, especially if the specific institutions don’tcomply with their duties as medicial institutions 24 for example, or in thecommunity. There is not a good climate of counterattacking the stigmatizationof the sick and of their families with financial and moral support. Also ofconcern is to find adequate means to convince the sick that they need to protectthe ones around them 25 . A few people had different opinions appreciating thatthe attention of society should focus first on other serious phenomena whichtrouble our daily life that are more pressing than AIDS which affects not somany people.Another set of questions inside the focus groups wih the priests wereaiming at the atitude towards the perrsons infected or the persons who werealready sufering of “Aids”,meaning that the people are more or less guilty ofcontacting the virus, the sickness can be associated with the sin, the infection is ashame or not the sick people should be treated diferently than those who are notsick and the community should be aware of the social problems which theinfected have to face.Generally, the priests focused on attitudes of understanding andtolerance towards people as promoted in different ways by the church. After all,they need to be looked at as sick people, who could be suffering from somethingelse. From the moral perspective, the way in which the virus was contracted22 “We need to pay attention but in today’s conditions there are other problems which Ithink troubles the society and the world we live in, at least in our country of Romania. So it is aproblem but if we would make a ranking using a scale from 1 to 10, I think the problem is in themiddle. This is not the largest problem that we have. Much more care should be given topreventative education, generally speaking given the number of existing cases.” (priest Iaşi)23 “If there is poverty and we have social will and political will we can a t least improveit, meaning we can make people live better, in case of the HIV infection there is no antidote yet. Atleast we should be able to stop it`s spreading, so that it would not reach to other people. So weshould have bigger caution about this disease and then about the other social concerns. If we cankeep this nightmare aside, I think we can solve the other problems easier “ (priest Bucharest)24 “I think the medical problem is very urgent, from every point of view: more educationin all directions which means people are much more aware and medical institutions need to bemuch more responsible to give more money to the Ministry of Health, to give more effort tocounterattack AIDS and to treat sero-positives, and for TBC and diabetics, too. Something needsto be done for overall health in Romania.” (priest Timiş)25 Different cases in which the sick don`t care about the health of others, and even theythemselves wanted to get others sick.