Skyscrapers but No Government AIDS Shelters for Malaysia

How is it that Malaysia could spend $1.5 billion to erect the Petronas Towers in 1998 but provide so little shelter for men with HIV/AIDS? Alex Arokiam recently asked. At his Welcome Community Home in Batu Arang outside of Kuala Lumpur, about 50 male AIDS patients are given shelter with help from the Catholic Church. It is an arrangement Arokiam came to about 10 years ago when he found government services targeting mostly women and children with HIV/AIDS.

"You can't give free medicine and hope the AIDS problem will disappear," said Arokiam. "[Patients] need a place to stay and be monitored until they are strong enough."

"To keep costs down, those who are healthy nurse the weak," said Arokiam, whose wife and daughter help out at the shelter, which is one of Malaysia's largest. Patients prepare their own food.

In a courtyard outside, men who are strong enough exercise. Meanwhile, one man massages the legs and stretches the limbs of a patient in a wheelchair.

Of the $1.2 million the Malaysian AIDS Council receives each year from the government, just $86,000 is for shelter. There are 73,427 people with HIV in Malaysia's 27 million population.

Back to other news for February 12, 2007