It just goes to show

Just when you think everything’s going swimmingly, life creeps up behind you and socks you over the head with a lead-filled sock (apologies to P G Wodehouse).

Forgive me if I stray from my usual topics and get a bit personal for once.

Ever since I came to Oz various doctors have remarked about blood in my urine. Scans and X-rays showed nothing, and a particularly vicious cytoscopy under local anaesthetic only – dyno-rod your dick - produced a diagnosis of ‘possible stricture in the urethra’.

Now we know it was in fact a kidney stone. A small fragment of it passed a year ago, much to everyone’s surprise – they were all running around talking of prostatitis at the time. But scans still failed to show up anything else, and we all went back to sleep.

Of late I started saying to my partner that I thought I might have another stone. The waterworks were playing up, and there were ominous twinges from the left kidney after an evening’s wine-drinking.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

The whole production moved into top gear last week, with excruciating back/groin pain, growing to the point where nothing the GP prescribed could quiet it, and we finally summoned an ambulance.

One night in emergency – and a large quantity of intravenous morphine – later, I was back home with some more scans, more pain-killers, and a consultant’s appointment.

My left kidney was twice the size of my right, and there were unclear indications of a stone. The consultant ordered more tests and more scans.

The stone had other ideas. The pain recommenced, and I went back to emergency. Within a couple of hours I was admitted, and found myself in a four-person room on the general surgical ward.

In one bed was G………, 90 years old, post-op bladder cancer. Then there was J…., a farmer from country Victoria, 70-something, also post-op – colostomy/prostatectomy. And me. The fourth bed was for very short term patients.

First there was the elderly gent with a very bad toupee who arrived fretting about his dog, which had been run over that morning. The dog had survived but was badly hurt.. They prepped him for surgery, wheeled him out, then wheeled him back half an hour later saying he was ‘too distressed’ to have his op. Total turnround time three hours.

The following day a similar thing happened, except the guy had his procedure and was gone by the end of the day.

A third occupant stayed two days and rarely emerged from behind the curtains at all.

J… was there the whole time I was. He and his wife and I struck up something of a rapport – mainly because G….. was way too sick to communicate with.

The day’s routine didn’t vary much. The nurses would come round about 9pm to settle us for the night, pump in the drugs, check the drips and drains. Then an hour or two later G….. would begin moaning. He would ring his bell. Moan louder. More often. Louder. Start yelling Nurse! Nurse! Nurse! Pain! Pain!

The rest of us were powerless to help, since we were tethered. On the right to a drip machine full of saline and drugs, firmly plugged into the wall, and some of the time also to a drain on the left, fed by a catheter.

At some point a nurse would respond to G…..’s cries and the bell. Sometimes before he’d reached the screaming stage. Sometimes not.

Depending on the quality of the nurse, she might ask, “Are you in pain? Where does it hurt?. Now we can’t have this G……, you’ll wake everyone up”

Or she might call for more help, start to check drips and drains.

Eventually – say within 30-45 minutes – G…..’s pain would subside. Unfortunately by then, everyone else would indeed be awake – and G….. was not the only screamer.

One woman could be heard in the distance, Aaah! Aaaah! Aaaa-aaah! (on a rising note), in surprisingly pure tones, almost like an opera singer warming up. Once she began, she often went all night. Later in the week, the night before I left, a baritone joined the duet.

Fortunately I had my earplugs. And the morphine.

That didn’t stop me overhearing things like a nurse telling the operatic screamer, “Now what is that noise? What do you think you’re doing? People are trying to sleep” Which did, amazingly, quiet her for an hour or two.

I thought the same nurse then said to one of her colleagues, “She doesn’t like me ever since I burned her.” But that may just have been the morphine.

Anyway, G.....’s wake up call usually got my pain going again, too, so I might get another shot of morphine. Or not, depending on the nurse.

A lot depended on the nurse.

They fell broadly into two camps – the bright and chirpy, rather like the kind of girls who work in pet shops and vets, and the grim. Despite the irritation, you wanted a chirpy.

Take Ersa. Small, bright, bouncy, and very, very Irish, she’d have made a great leprechaun. Fortunately she also made a great nurse. If she was your nurse for the night, and you were in pain, you got your shot, there and then. If need be she’d fetch a doctor to sign off on it. If G….. was in pain she’d summon help immediately.

At the other end of the scale was a slow, fat, bad-tempered part-chinese woman whose name I never quite caught, so I’ll call her Porkbelly. No one liked her. When the supervisor said one morning, “We’re overstaffed today – Porkbelly, will you take a short shift?” Porkbelly mulishly refused. If you rang for Porkbelly often, her response times got slower and slower. Even if you were G......

She lumbered around complaining about everything. “You think this is a five-star hotel, don’t you?”, she said. And if it was not precisely six hours since your last shot – no painkiller. I called her one night and she consulted the chart. She looked at me and said, “You’re too early. Call me in fifteen minutes.”

There was a couple of other nurses who, while not quite the cow Porkbelly was, still had a very cold demeanour and stuck precisely to the rules, no matter what.

One morning after my op I awoke with a sensation of pressure in my bladder and I knew exactly what it was. Either the drain bag was full, or it had not been hung correctly and was not draining freely. This, incidentally, turned out to be the main cause of G.....’s pain.

I turned on my light and looked at the tube leading to my bag. Although the bag was only half full, the tube was backed-up right to my dick. I rang for the nurse. No response. That’s right – Shanti – a very handsome middle-aged Indian woman with a wonderful waist-length braid of thick black hair, and one of the rule-sticklers – was on tonight. I waited. The pressure continued to build, the bell to chime.

I took matters into my own hands. I reached down for the bag and saw that it had been hung too low. The weight of the contents had caused it to stretch and slump in such a way that the fluid draining from me couldn’t get past the valve at the top of the bag.

I unhooked the bag, twisted, it, gave it a shake, re-arranged it, and finally flow was restored and the pressure eased. At which point Shanti appeared. I explained what had happened.

“No, that is not possible. You are mistaken. See, the bag is only half full. “

I explained again that the fluid had been backed up all the way.

“No, see, just a little at the top and the bottom, but it is running freely. There is no problem.”

“No, not now, because I fixed it while I was waiting for you – but it was not running freely before.”

“You’re wrong. That cannot happen. It is fine. Let me take your blood pressure. Hmm, rather high. We got upset over nothing, didn’t we? Anyway, it’s time for your shot.”

I ground my teeth and shut up.

Back to sleep. Until about five am, when G..... awoke in pain again, and the whole circus was repeated.

By the time the nurses had G..... settled it was time for our morning shots and clean-up. As breakfast was being served I looked out the door to see Shanti-strolling by, holding my drain bag at chest height and swinging it coquettishly. She saw me watching, and laughingly pointed to the fluid level, mouthing “Half-full.”

On my last day I was free of drips and drains, so as soon as G..... started moaning I didn’t wait – I got up and went straight to the nurse station. Fortunately Ersa was on duty – and we got help for G..... in record time. Porkbelly was there too, but looking after a different group of patients. She looked daggers at me.

Ersa brought in a whole group of doctors to look at G....., and they changed something – I don’t know what – and he slept right through till breakfast.

…………………………………………………………………………………..

The day of my operation came round. I was scheduled for 11.30. By 11.25 there was no sign of any action, so I strolled out to the nurses station. A man sat here, busy with some paperwork.

“I’m scheduled for an op right now, “ I said, “ but no-one’s come to prep me or anything.”

Without looking up, he said, “You need to speak to the nurses.”

I spoke to the nurse sitting next to him, who reassured me all was well. I went back to my room, got back on the bed, and in walked the guy from the nursing station.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m your anaesthetist. First off I have to tell you that there will be an additional fee for my services which is not covered by Medicare or your health fund. It is not possible to give an estimate in advance as there are so many variables but it should be in the region of $300.”

“Secondly, you have a choice. You can have a spinal injection, which numbs you from about here down” he said, indicating his breastbone.

“You remain awake throughout the operation, though you won’t feel a thing, and you can watch the entire procedure on the monitors.”

He seemed to think this was a great inducement.

“Or you can have a general, which means you won’t know a thing till you wake up in recovery.”

“General, please,” I said firmly.

“Now some people don’t like the spinal for some reason,” he ploughed on, “but it’s much the best option.”

“Not for me,” I said, “I don’t want to know anything about it. General.”

“But it’s much more dangerous. The gas poisons your lungs.”

“Yes, but like you said, some people are unhappy about having needles shoved into their spines, and I’m one of them.”

“And of course there is a risk that you could vomit during the operation, so to prevent you drowning in it we have to insert a tube into your throat, which may give you a very sore throat. And when you’re coming round from the anaesthetic we have to remove that tube. By then you’ll feel us removing it, which is very unpleasant, and may also cause you to vomit – it’s pretty horrible.”

“I still want the general.” By now I was rather hoping I would vomit as I came round – all over him.

He sighed, and gave up.

Then the cash machine that is private medicine swung into action. I was gowned, trollied and wheeled into what looked like a vast underground carpark, all white-painted concrete, divided by curtains. I suddenly thought of the movie Soylent Green. My team – now all gowned in deepest blue – appeared, and hooked me up to this and that.

Trollies were being wheeled to a distant doorway. Trollies were being wheeled back to the booths. A woman was wheeled into the booth next to me – the curtains were open – and then she began to convulse. The curtain was whisked across, some medical code was yelled, a group converged on her and began work.

I was wheeled into another room which looked like the parts department of a garage. The walls were lined with bright blue parts bins, each one with a stash of stents, shunts, valves, tubes etc. A mask was put over my face, and I thought to myself, well, if this is it, at least I won’t know anything about it.

Then I woke up in my bed with a drip on my right, a catheter in my dick, and a bag of what looked like raspberry cordial hanging near the floor on my right. Made it!

………………………………………………………………………………….

My other roommate, J...., was a very gentle man. He chatted when he wanted to, retreated to his privacy when he felt like it, which suited me fine. I was much the same. The phone by his bed kept ringing – is Julia there? No, she’s not, said J..... She must have gone home. We wondered who this woman might be. Seemed to be very popular.

We didn’t always talk. By and large I kept the curtains round my bed closed, especially the one separating me from G...... But the curtain at the foot of the bed I kept open during the day, so I could see what was happening and chat with J.... if he felt like it. Whenever Porkbelly was on, she would of course immediately open all the curtains, whether we liked it or not.

J....s wife came every day, and for some reason took a liking to me, too, so we had a few polite conversations. She did some small thing for me one day, unasked – I can’t remember what – and when I thanked her she just smiled and said, “Well, that’s what friends are for,” and went back to chatting with her husband. I felt very proud. I had done nothing besides talk with her husband from time to time, and pay for his morning newspaper one day when he ran out of cash.

They were the epitome of small town country Australia – him dressed head-to-foot in R M Williams and Akubra – if he’d been from Lancashire he’d have bought his clothes from my uncle - her in neat dark blue suits and well-permed hair.

J.... was struggling with the news that his enlarged prostate had so restricted the flow of urine that his bladder had stretched to three times it’s normal size and lost all muscle tone. He had been wearing a catheter and bag for some time, and had hoped that after his prostate op he could go back to peeing normally.

He quietly persisted until his specialist agreed to operate again to try and improve the problem, take a bit more of the prostate away. The result was a crop of unsuspected stones – but he would still have to use a catheter to pee. He was given a choice – a permanent catheter with bag, which would have to be changed in hospital every three months.

Or he could catheterize himself three times a day – pop it in, pee, pop it out. He didn’t fancy this option much, as he had found previous catheter insertions difficult and painful. We talked it over, and I sympathized. Maybe he’d get used to it, I said, maybe it would get easier. In the end, that’s what he did.

When he left – he checked out just before me - J.... shook my hand and said it had been a pleasure to meet me. I felt this was not just politeness, he meant it. It was good to have met him, too.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

A young guy on crutches with his lower leg in plaster hobbled in the first morning. Very loud, very laddish, introduced himself to everyone, then hobbled off. Doing his rounds, he called it, keeping mobile.

On the second day he told J.... – “That used to be my bed.” A small light went on in my head.

“Your name isn’t Julian, is it?,” I asked.

“Yeah mate, how’d you know that?”

“Oh, J....s just been telling all these people who’ve been ringing his extension that Julia’s not here, she’s gone home.”

We had a good laugh at that.

As I started to improve and could walk about, I started perambulating the ward – and found Julian in a private room. Now his leg was in plaster to the hip, and there was a cage over it to keep the weight of the bedding off.

He invited me in.

“So what happened,” I asked.

“ Oh, I was showing my nephew how not to ride a motorbike,” he said, “I got distracted. I came off and the footrest went through my calf when the bike landed on top of me. Looks like a shark bit me.”

He was a farm lad from somewhere in the country, very fit and handsome, about 30. He told me that for three days after the accident he had lain in the local hospital while the haematoma on his leg grew and grew. They didn’t think to drain it, apparently.

Eventually his parents had him transferred to Melbourne, where the doctors said if he had left it any longer he could have lost the leg.

The day I was checking out Julian saw me all ready to leave, and called me in to say goodbye. His ‘nephew’ had come to visit – and I saw how Julian got distracted. A stunner if ever I saw one – as tall and broad as his ‘uncle’, about 19, with a shock of unruly blonde hair and a killer grin. We shook hands all round, while my partner rolled his eyes and Porkbelly – who was waiting to hand back my morphine pills she had confiscated when I checked in – tapped her foot.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

I had a final chat with my current urologist. My last one was a cold, arrogant 50-ish 10kms before breakfast type, who looked down his nose at people who were stupid enough to get fat and unfit. This one is by contrast a jovial forty-something Indian butterball. I know who I prefer.

He presented me with photos of my stone in situ. Apparently it’s a rare type, not the usual calcite stone. Actually, it looks like a tiny gold pawn embedded in a spiky gold nugget, about 7mm x 5mm. Analysis will tell us the rest. He has left a stent in me to allow my swollen kidney to drain, and I have to call him in a week or so to arrange it’s removal.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

So now I’m home, feeling OK-ish but weak. Spending a lot of time reading or sleeping. There are a million things to do round the house but even small tasks are an uphill battle. I tire fast. And from the way things feel, there might be tiny fragments making their way out. There’s still blood in my urine. And the front of my left thigh has gone numb. That happened after my hernia op, too – something about a damaged nerve – so that may not come back. Time for bed again – and more Panadeine!!!! I’m resting from the radio station but keeping going with the paper – I can do most of the work from home. And we’ll see how we go.

Same Sex Marriage v. Civil Unions

Well, there’s one more piece of wishful thinking down the gurgler.

The chorus has been chanting for a while now. “We made a mistake asking for marriage, we should have just asked for civil unions. That worked in the UK, it will work here. They don’t mind so long as we don’t say the M-word.”

Well that line of argument has now been put to the test and it looks as if it was a mistake.

The ACT put up exactly that – civil unions with functional equivalence to marriage. Result: Howard and Ruddock pull on their boots and braces and wade in with fists flying.

Our need is simple: equality. To be treated in all areas of life exactly the same way as anyone else, regardless of sexuality. Our opponents think we are something less than full human beings with full human rights, and treat us accordingly.

It’s all about fairness and equality, and that means, among other things, our relationships being treated exactly the same as anyone elses.

By saying, “We’ll settle for civil unions, and you can keep marriage as it is,” we’d be offering a compromise before negotiations have even begun, fatally weakening our position.

A compromise is something you offer at the end of a negotiating process. You don’t go crawling in at the beginning saying, “Don’t worry, sir, we’re not asking for much.” The other side will naturally assume that’s a negotiating position and offer even less. You don’t reveal your negotiating position – if that’s what it is – in advance.

The case is very simple: equality, equality, equality, and whenever they offer something less, say no, as politely and patiently as you can manage. Explain what equality might look like, offer alternative ways to arrive at equality, refuse anything that doesn’t offer equality, unless perhaps it has a built-in timeframe to equality. The negotiation is about HOW the government plans to legislate equality, not whether we should have it at all. That’s clearly non-negotiable.

As long as the gold standard of relationship recognition is federal marriage and it’s attendant rights and responsibilities, equality means we must have the same.

But if they want to set up a new standard, such as gender/sexuality neutral civil unions, while passing marriages off to the religions, that could be one way to go.

In a supposedly secular country, that would seem to be the logical answer. To those who would drag their religion into parliament I can do no better than quote this riposte to a US Senator who was overly fond of appealing to the bible to justify his actions.

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." Amen.

In other words, for as long as they try to restrict marriage to only SOME citizens, we want it too. If on the other hand they agree to develop a more logical, sensible legal framework of relationship recognition, more closely aligned to reality and open to all, then the religions can keep marriage, and if gay Anglicans, Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and Jedi want one of those marriages, well, that’s between themselves and their priests.

There may well be other solutions that could be developed during negotiations. In that sense, and in that sense only, marriage is irrelevant. So long as the outcome is equality, the route taken does not matter.

Salt’n’Pepa

Interesting show last night (Thursday 30^th) with an interview by Tony Nicholls with Peter Stokes of the Saltshakers.

Tony’s naïve and wide eyed – but cunning – charm worked it’s magic and Stokes was remarkably revealing. Some bizarre theology: when asked that old chestnut – if you obey the bible literally then do you eat shellfish and wear polycotton (if you don’t know the story, they’re some of things Leviticus calls abominations, along with men having sex together), Stokes said you had to know how to read your bible.

If a rule was only mentioned in the bible once – like the shellfish and the mixed fibres ones – then that rule was specific to the time and situation for which the passage was written. These two, he claimed, were for a specific time and place – when the Isrealites were wandering in the desert.

Leaving aside the question of where you find lobsters in a desert, he passed on to homosexuality. He claimed this prohibition, by contrast, was inherent throughout the bible, and thus remained valid.

He also said it was obvious that men and women were designed by God to fit together – tell that to a child with no sex education – whereas gay men used what he called “the sewerage system”.

Now that’s a curious one: all sex takes place in and around the sewerage system – unless I’ve been getting it wrong all my life and ought to have been peeing through my nose. And given all the above it’s obvious Stokes puts his arse to some unintended uses too, so to speak.

So far, so predictable.

Audience reaction: mixed. At first quite a lot of “why are you giving this guy airtime”, “get this shit off our station” and so forth. I took time out to explain the (biblical) notion of ‘know thine enemy’ – and his ilk are influential and their nonsense is believed even within our government.

A US journalist friend could not believe this audience reaction: he said on his radio station he always gave opponents more than 50% of the time, because unless you understand that they exist, how they think, expose their prejudices, how can you counter them? Beside, he said, journalism is about controversy: we’re not here to “blow sunshine and bubbles up the listeners skirts.” Amen and hallelujah to that!

Anyway, back to Stokesy.

I always have trouble with people who claim literal and absolute truth for the bible.

For a start, it isn’t A Book – it’s a limited selection of the available manuscripts on the subject of the Jewish, and later Christian, religion. There are many many more that didn’t make it into the collection. Early in the church’s history, a bunch of male bishops decided what to keep and what to toss, according to the political requirements of the day, the state of historical and theological scholarship etc.. So from the start the enterprise was fatally compromised.

Then there’s the question of the manuscripts themselves.

All the bible stories stem from oral tradition. That is, for hundreds if not thousands of years, they were not written down, only memorized and spoken. So over time, changes and distortions crept in. Mishearings, a desire to tell a better, more gripping story, embellishments to hold the audience’s interest. Over and over again, over hundreds and hundreds of years.

Then the stories started to be written down. No printing presses, so copies had to be made by hand. More errors and embellishments. Plus, of course, different tribes might have different versions, in different languages. Not all these versions have survived, so how can we vouch for the ‘authenticity’ of what we have? We can’t.

And all the way along, new stories were being written and circulated. Sometimes in places and societies very different to those that gave rise to previous stories, with different understandings of the meaning of things, the relations between men and women, for example, or the role of a leader.

That’s the reason why, if you search the bible diligently enough, you can find stories to support both sides of an argument, not just one.

It’s hard for the layperson to spot his stuff in the Old Testament, but it becomes glaringly obvious in the New – have you never noticed that the four gospels give different accounts? That’s because they were written at different times: all of them long after Jesus was dead.

Did you know that St Paul, on whose writings most of the Christian religion is founded, never met Jesus?

And if all that wasn’t enough to place the claim of literal truth in serious doubt, then consider this. None of the stuff you read in the bible was originally written in English.

Most of it has been translated many times through several different languages. A story in the bible may have first been written in, say Aramaic, then later translated into Hebrew, the Hebrew version translated into Greek, the Greek into Latin, the Latin into early English, then into Modern English. Even now, when we try to go back and reconstruct the ‘original’ version (which, if you remember what I was saying before about oral traditions, won’t be very original at all), we probably don’t have a copy of the Hebrew or Aramaic versions, only the Greek. Or only the Latin. Or perhaps a copy of the Latin version made by an Egyptian scribe . . . . . you see the difficulty?

We’ve only recently discovered, for example, that the famous phrase about passing a camel through the eye of a needle should in fact read, a rope through the eye of a needle. A bit of ink on a manuscript had faded, changing the meaning of a word. X-rays revealed what was originally there.

So it is quite literally impossible to say that what we read in our bible today bears a true resemblance to what the original writer intended. And that’s before we even start to contemplate cultural differences. Think of all the Australian phrases that have to be explained to other people. No other culture has furphys or dummy-spits. No-one else says ‘on the nose’. The word ‘ordinary’ just means ‘plain and unremarkable’ in anyone else’s English – and nothing else. So we can’t be sure what we read means what it sounds as if it means. Not ‘a sure guide to deeds’ at all.

I have digressed somewhat – back to the programme.

The latter half of the show – the only bit of it I now produce as well as present – is a panel discussion. I gathered two gay priests, the Rev Heather Creighton of the Metropolitan Community Church, and Rev Fr Greg Horn of the Ecumenical Catholic Church. And we had an excellent discussion in which we placed Stokes in his proper context and discussed some of the above, and much else besides. Audience reaction swung round as people understood what we were attempting to do.

This panel business is so different from what I used to do – the old show was tightly scripted and controlled, mostly pre-recorded. Now I’m learning to manage people in real time on air. Daunting at times but fun.

Off next week as the Young Australians take over. I shall listen with interest.

"We have failed," says AIDS Spokesperson

IN THE wake of the surge in HIV infections, disagreements have broken out in the AIDS sector on what has gone wrong and how to put it right.

Respected AIDS expert Dr Jonathan Anderson of the Carlton Clinic has written to Bronwyn Pike, Victorian Health Minister, suggesting a shake-up of the Victorian Aids Council that would see VicHealth take over some the VAC’s key functions.

While acknowledging the excellent work done by VAC in the past, he says, “Much of the education and prevention budget is spent on program staff and administration, rather than direct campaigns.”

And he also says a review two years ago, which identified changes that need to be made, has still not been implemented. And he said the problem isn’t just a lack of funds.

“If they can’t get additional funding from government they need to work out whether they can go ahead . . . within existing budgets. They were told two and half years ago that there were some programs that needed to be pared back, some could stand on their own or were being provided elsewhere, and some needed to be expanded to face the new changed environment.”

“Have they made those hard decisions?” he asked, “ I believe that if we waste money that is much worse than not having money in the first place.”

He suggests the VAC be split into a services and support community health agency, and a separate community representation agency, while their health education and promotion work should be taken over by VicHealth.

“What I’m saying is that I think we have an opportunity here in Victoria. We just happen to have Vic Health, which just happens to be one of the world’s best, if not the best, health promotion agency, so my suggestion is a constructive one.”

He dismissed objections that health education and promotion should be done by groups within the gay community.

“Certainly the programs need to be delivered by your peers at the local level, but that doesn’t stop the actual agency that’s commissioning the work and co-ordinating the whole program not being among the peers,” he said.

“If you look at the VicHealth website they’re doing tons of programs, and if they’re doing one for Somali women, for example, they’re funding Somali women to run programs.”

He said that VicHealth was a well funded body running very efficient and effective programs. And he pointed to the increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians in the mainstream in other areas, saying, why not in health promotion too?

“It’s changing nowadays . . we are more accepted in the wider world, we don’t necessarily need to rely on the gay community for everything. Which is why I argue that we should start to claim our part in the mainstream in terms of health promotion, too. Why aren’t we using the best mainstream health promotion agency in the world? Why don’t we?”

Sources within the HIV positive community said all the organisations involved had to face the fact that, “Whether we like it or not, we’ve failed. If our brief is to minimise infections in this state, we’ve failed. Now we have to say, what have we done wrong (?) and we must look for new ways to tackle the problem.

Mike Kennedy, CEO of the Victorian AIDS Council, said, “I don’t think we can talk about this in terms of success or failure. It’s not a useful way to have this discussion.”

Dr Anderson said the problem was that an organisation that tries to do everything may be unable to focus on the key things that need to be done. The VAC has been trying to be a jack of all trades he said, and when you do that, you lose focus.

But he was at pains to stress, “This is not about the VAC. This is about people not getting HIV/AIDS. If we look at the rates of unprotected sex, we don’t see any drop or flattening of the rates…if anything, it’s increasing. That’s the figure that matters. Let’s try and work out whether we can spend the scarce resources that are available in the best way to maximise health. That’s all I really care about.”

Reversing The Trend

FEATURE Melbourne Star – MAR 30 2006

Last issue of Melbourne Star we reported a significant spike in new HIV infection rates. Dr Jonathon Anderson from Carlton Clinic wants reform of the Victorian AIDS Council (VAC) but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

HIV infections have been rising slowly but steadily since at least 2000, and the latest statistics show a big jump. Dr Jonathan Anderson has called for many of Victorian AIDS Council’s functions to go to Vic Health instead (see front page). But not everyone - and especially not Mike Kennedy, CEO of the VAC – agrees. Greg Iverson, President of People Living with HIV/AIDS Victoria (PLWHA), says a lack of funding is the problem. On the other hand, Sean Slavin, researcher with the Australian Research Centre in Sex Health and Society (ARCSHS), says the kind of big budget campaigns seen in Sydney wouldn’t work in Melbourne.

Mike Kennedy, CEO of the VAC disagreed with both analyses.

“Jonathan’s contribution is starting at the wrong end,” he said. “The discussion Jonathan has started is about who should be doing it. The discussion about funding is, we need more money to do it. We need to agree what this it is before we start talking about who is going to do it, or whether we need more money for it.”

Sean Slavin, of the Australian Research Centre in Sex Health and Society (ARCSHS), doubted that big public campaigns like those run by AIDS Council of New South Wales (ACON) could work.

“The Melbourne gay community is quite dispersed geographically and culturally. It isn’t anywhere near as coherent as the Sydney gay scene, and that does present some particular challenges for health education in Melbourne. There’s much more of a sense of identification around gay identity and institutions in Sydney.”

Slavin, who is normally based in Sydney, identified another difference campaigns would need to address. He said that positive men in Melbourne had a much harder time disclosing their HIV status to potential partners.

“From what I’ve seen, rejection would be the mildest outcome,” he said. “They also run the risk of some fairly strident stigma being thrown at them.”

So if the leading organisations and individuals involved in fighting HIV/AIDS can’t agree, who will sort out the mess? Mike Kennedy reckons Health Minister Bronwyn Pike needs to step in and take a leadership role, get everyone together to sort through the options and make the decisions.

Kennedy said the funding would be there if the community could make a case for it.

“I’m not suggesting we do another inquiry, it doesn’t need months and months of work. But ....you’ve got to get the policy stuff right first,” he said. “You’ve got to mount the business case, and... when we’ve been able to do that effectively, government has found the money..”

Greg Iverson of PLWHA said that while he didn’t always agree with the VAC – in particular there were strong objections to the Staying Negative campaign – in this case they were right. Funding was the major problem. But he also thought that over the longer term the need for dedicated AIDS groups would fade away.

“This... trend is already happening,” he said. “Linkages have been established between AIDS councils and Hepatitis C councils. We’ve already got a gay and lesbian section in our health department – the only one in the country that does. Where does that leave the VAC? They need to ponder that.”

Dangerous Liaisons

While organisations, bureaucrats and activists wrangle, new infections continue to occur, because some dangerous myths are leading men to make high-risk decisions that increase their risk of getting HIV.

Unprotected sex – sex without a condom – also referred to as raw or bareback sex – is on the rise. That doesn’t mean that gay men are recklessly deciding the risk of HIV is worth the feel of skin-on-skin. Instead they are experimenting with a range of strategies to try and have unprotected sex safely.

Drugs, Drink and Sex-on-Site

A study of 15 newly infected HIV positive men in Melbourne, by the Australian Research Centre in Sex Health and Society, found that most of the men became infected while bottoming unprotected – half of them at a sex-on-site venue or beat. And “drugs and/or alcohol featured in the risk incidents” for most of the men in the sample.

Don’t Assume

Researcher Sean Slavin said the study also showed that positive men often assume that when a prospective partner offers unprotected sex, he is positive too. Negative men, on the other hand, assume he’s negative. Either way the false assumption leads to risky sex.

This is what’s known as sero-sorting – trying to reduce your risk by only having unprotected sex with partners of the same HIV status as yourself. The problem is, it’s not possible to have unprotected sex safely with a casual partner in any circumstances.

Sero-Sorting – Positive Guys

If you’re both positive, there is still the danger of other sexually transmitted infections, such as chlamydia, and syphilis, which are fast rising in the gay community. These are a major problem for people whose immune systems are already challenged. Mike Kennedy of the Victorian AIDS Council, says, “Particularly gruesome complications can arise from being HIV positive and having syphilis.”

Sero-Sorting – Negative Guys

In a casual context, you can never be sure that you’re both negative. Greg Iverson of People Living with HIV AIDS says you can never call yourself negative unless you’ve had an HIV test, “and what’s more, unless you had the test yesterday.” Otherwise your status is not negative, it’s unknown. In other words, sero-sorting is not going to protect you.

The Joys Of Monogamy

The only time when it’s safer – not safe – to have unprotected sex with a partner is within a monogamous committed relationship. But even that’s not simple. The VAC publishes guidelines on the web called Talk-Test-Test-Trust - Details: www.vicaids.asn.au

In short, while community organisations try to decide what they should do next, we as individuals need to look at some the assumptions we’ve made that have resulted in some of us becoming infected.

In the meantime, as the party season gets under way, remember to play safe.

RAINBOW RETURN!!

Well, another Melbourne Star out today – 16^th March – and another Rainbow Report on air tonight.

Yes, I’m back on Joy Melbourne 94.9 http://www.joy.org.au every Thursday evening 7.00 – 8.00 pm AEST with a completely new show.

I now have a full support team, including an Executive Producer, station News Director Tim Lennox.

In the first 40 minutes of the show I introduce items by other contributors, while the last 20 minutes is a discussion panel.

A feature of the show is a provocative opinion piece broadcast early in the show – audience response then provides material for the later discussion.

The first show last week went reasonably well – let’s see how we do tonight, especially as the Commonwealth Games are on (and traffic/parking is horrendous).

Return of the native

Picked up the latest MCV (Friday 3^rd March) and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief – they’re back on form again. Over the last couple of months they seemed to have turned into some weird corporate brochure, with pseudo-manga covers and news downgraded to filler status, but THEY’RE BACK!! Hooray!

I’m intrigued at the letters/editorial stoush over the chicks’n’dicks crew they turned out for Pride and Carnival. Perhaps this rather ill-judged attempt at importing Sydney Mardi-Gras style sex’n’sleaze – not that there’s anything wrong with that – is now over.

Personally I’ve no objection to scantily-clad models sashaying around in public, but they stuck out at the aforementioned events like a sore bum. Soo not Melbourne, darlings. Mind you, some of the community reaction seems just a tad hypocritical.

Pride’s a MARCH, lovies, as they will tell you (at tedious self-justifying length) not a PARADE. We’re Melbourne, it’s tasteless, bad form or something to actually mention the SEX in homoSEXuality. We’re frightfully respectable chaps and chapesses nowadays, don’t you know, these are FAMILY events, people brought their kids, for heaven’s sake. I don’t want my kids exposed to female BREASTS at Carnival!!!!

Hang on a minute, weren’t some of the Dykes on Bykes at Pride, as tradition dictates, bare-breasted? What did you do when they went roaring by? Drop a burkah over the stroller?

Oh, it’s only COMMERCIAL titties you object to - you don’t mind COMMUNITY dugs on display. Or your own while you’re proudly (and rightly) publicly breastfeeding the aforementioned sprogs. Glad we cleared that one up.

Not being a breast man myself, I just smiled indulgently when the MCVettes dropped their tops and turned my attention to the boys. And boys is the word. Shouldn’t they have been at school? Probably a convent school, to judge by the shrieking and giggling?

My only objection is that they were – I’m trying to say this kindly – a bit underdeveloped. When the cabin crew sashay down the aisle, asking, “Chicken, fish or beef?” I’ll take beef every time. And I’ll always choose the steak over the ribs. But everyone to his or her own taste.

At any rate, it seemed distinctly odd for a self-styled community newspaper to promo itself as if it were a porn mag. But as I said, judging by the latest edition, they’re getting over it. Melbourne has two gay newspapers again. And HOORAY for that.

A real gay cowboy

Thank you, Sydney Morning Herald

LIBERALS AND LABOR START BIDDING WAR FOR GAY VOTES

After Melbourne Star went to press, I spoke to Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch about his plans to introduce a Private Members Bill to tackle discrimination against same sex couples.

He wants to look at issues of equity, but won’t address marriage and adoption because, as he candidly admits, that would bring the churches down on him. He also pointed out that equitable treatment has some downsides eg Centrelink payments - but that’s equality.

That was Roxon’s excuse for not addressing couple-related discrimination at this time: she claimed that since there would be some losses for gay couples if their relationship was recognized, change needed to be managed to ensure that these were brought in at the same time as compensating gains.

“I’ll be writing to all my colleagues to point out these inequalities,” said Entsch, “they say its all fixed up with super and the ADF but that’s just scratching the surface. “

Strictly Practical

“Exactly how we tackle it, whether with some kind of national recognition system or by recognising what’s in place in the states (except South Australia) I don’t know at this stage.”

He focusing on the strictly practical: “What you need is some kind of formal recognition document that triggers the same processes that a marriage certificate triggers for heterosexuals. Don’t care what we call it. Just stay away from marriage to keep the churches out of it.”

Entsch has met with members of the Australian Coalition for Equality and says he will be working with them on the proposed bill.

Lot’s of Liberal support?

Entsch claimed he already had the support of a surprisingly large number of colleagues, though none would go on the record at this stage until they had seen the details of his proposals.

“Some Liberals say its against Liberal policy and philosophy, but I point out to them, it was Liberals who got rid of the white Australia policy, got aboriginal rights and women’s rights, and decriminalized homosexuality.”

Why you?

I asked him why, with his rather roughneck heterosexual reputation, would take on such a battle.

“I have some very dear friends in Queensland who’ve been together for 27 years,” he said, “and accept them socially and personally as a couple in every way. My 12 yr old son is great friends with them and always wants to know when we’re going to spend time with them. How could I accept them privately and then come to this place and pretend that their relationship was something less than it is? There’s a word for that. It’s ‘hypocrisy.’”

He said he’d had a great deal of response from the public, most of it positive, with only five correspondents against – and they were focused on ‘the sex angle’.

It’s not about the sex,” he said, “I’m not interested in the sex, blokes parading in the Mardi Gras with feathers up their bums. It's not about that. It’s about fairness and equity before the law.”

Labor Window-Dressing

Entsch is convinced that Nicola Roxon’s proposed bill – which will not address any of the issues relating to couples - has been generated by the stand he’s taking - a desire not to be left behind. “She’s not dealing with the real issues it’s just window dressing. Talking the talk but not walking the walk: these anti-discrimination and harassment measures she’s talking about are already there,” he told me.

And he may be right. The day after I asked Roxon if she would work with the Liberals to secure a conscience vote on these issues, creating a bipartisan approach similar to that which wrested abortion pill RU486 from Tony Abbott’s control, I received the following:

Nicola Roxon MP
Shadow Attorney-General
Tanya Plibersek MP
Member for Sydney

JOINT MEDIA RELEASE

Labor recommits to gay and lesbian law reform

This week the Labor Caucus endorsed a plan to actively campaign on gay and lesbian law reform and pursue the Howard Government on its failure to make good its promises.

As part of Labor’s campaign, Nicola Roxon will introduce a private members’ bill to combat discrimination, harassment and incitement to violence based on sexuality or gender identity. Parliament needs to send a strong message that homophobic violence, intimidation and discrimination are unacceptable.

Labor will also step up pressure on the Howard Government to fulfil its promise to end discrimination against same sex couples in the area of public sector superannuation.

Further, we have committed to making sure that same sex couples are included when the Family Court jurisdiction is extended to cover property disputes of de facto couples, a change which is expected this year. The Howard Government has indicated that it will limit the extension to heterosexual couples, leaving same sex couples the stress and expense of negotiating both state and federal courts in the event of family break-up.

Labor will commence consultation on the models for a system of formal recognition of same sex relationships, such as civil unions. We look forward to discussing this issue with gay and lesbian groups across Australia.

Federal Labor looks forward to building on our achievements and working constructively with the LGBT community to bring an end to discrimination.

Wednesday, 1 March 2006

Gay & Lesbian Liaison Offficers (II)

Following my front page story In Melbourne Star last issue (Cops Lose their GLLOs) Victoria Police acknowledge that the program is in trouble, and are trying to decide where they go from here.

In direct response to our revelations, the full-time GLLO for Region 4 (covering areas such as Monash, Knox, Whitehorse and Boorondara) will now remain in post at least until April, and a new volunteer GLLO has been appointed to cover the LaTrobe Valley in Region 5.

The Equal Opportunity Commission, the Victorian AIDS Council, the Rainbow Network and the ALSO Foundation, are all writing to Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon, and asking for explanations.

The gay and lesbian liaison officer program was begun because so many crimes against gays and lesbians, especially domestic violence and sexual assaults, went unreported.

The GLLO mission statement says “The Gay and Lesbian Mission is to contribute to the creation of mutual trust between police, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and intersex persons so that they may have increasing confidence in police through the provisions of fair and equitable policing service.”

But Melbourne Star has spoken to several serving gay and lesbian police officers, who paint a disturbing picture of a program struggling to survive in the face of a hostile culture, especially in the middle levels of the command structure.

The officers allege that people without appropriate qualifications and little or no interest in the job are sometimes appointed. The function may be added to an officers existing responsibilities, but no additional resources are provided, and pro-active outreach to the GLBTI community is not sanctioned.

This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the GLLO is unenthusiastic, with neither the resources, motivation or official sanction to build bridges with the community, crimes against gays and lesbians continue to go unrecorded in the statistics on which the police rely when deciding how best to use their resources. As a result a commander can argue that, since the statistics show little or no gay related crime, there is no need for a GLLO.

Melbourne Star has even heard of unsympathetic officers appointed as GLLOs because their commander ‘has no particular use’ for them, to encourage them to quit the force. These sorts of abuses arise where the program is run by “people whose heart isn’t in it,” according to one source.

The problem is not confined to Victoria – Surry Hills, one of Sydney’s largest police stations, right in the heart of the gay district, has been without a GLLO for three months. A temporary Mardi Gras Liaison Officer has been appointed, but there’s no sign of a permanent replacement.


CASE STUDY – WHY WE NEED GLLOs

The case of the two men who were bashed at Spring Street tram stop after Carnival illustrates exactly why we NEED gay and lesbian liaison officers.

The police who answered their 000 call told them to remain at the tram stop while they searched for the attackers.

But the couple, believing they had done everything necessary, and feeling unsafe remaining in the area, left.

When the police returned to the scene 20 minutes later to find them gone, they assumed the couple had decided not to take the matter further. So they made no official report.

So when the area GLLO, Senior Constable Danielle Cameron was contacted by the press for information, she could find no record.

However, by checking 000 calls she traced the officers involved, and the victims, persuading them to make the all-important official report, without which the police can’t launch an investigation.

The official report also ensures that the crime appears in the statistics, and as we have seen, if crime doesn’t show up in the stats, senior command don’t believe it’s happening, and don’t allocate resources to tackle it.

In a further twist, when Cameron tried to track the progress of the investigation, she discovered that data entry staff hadn’t ticked the box identifying it as a gay hate crime.

State GLLO Co-ordinator Sergeant Scott Davis is now trying to discover how often this might have happened in the past. If it turns out to be a common error, the statistics on which Victoria Police are basing their decisions about the future of GLLOs may well show anti-gay crime at a much lower level than it really is.