Queer View Mirror
with Stephen Meyler
#TuslaHIV
#LondonPride
#GCN30
NANNY STATE OR BIG BROTHER?
A recent court case showed an unusual legal side to how attitudes to AIDS have changed, now that it’s a treatable disease. The state agency that looks after vulnerable children, Tusla, wanted the right to tell the 17-year-old girlfriend of a boy, also 17, who has been HIV-positive since birth, about his status. Tusla believes the boy, who has been in the agency’s care all of his life, is having sex with the girl and that she has a right to the information, so she could be in control of her own sexual health.
The judge turned them down, largely because it would have been a breach of the trust between doctor and patient that was unwarranted, given the low risk of the girl getting HIV from the boy and the fact that it is no longer a life-threatening disease (in Ireland at least). This was despite a leading sexual health specialist appearing for Tusla, to argue that he and other doctors should breach their patients’ confidentiality in such cases.