chinese AIDS patients fight hospital rejections

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_AIDS_DENIED_CARE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-29-06-39-51

BEIJING (AP) -- Wang Pinghe wants the tumor in his liver removed before it becomes life-threatening. But the 28-year-old Chinese villager knows it will be hard to find a hospital that will do the operation - because he has AIDS.

In China, hospitals routinely reject people with HIV for surgery out of fear of exposure to the virus or harm to their reputations. After years of denying AIDS was a problem in China, the country has significantly improved care for patients, but the lingering stigma sets back those advances.

"In my hometown, not a single hospital is willing to operate on people infected with HIV," said Wang, who traveled to Beijing from Runan county in the central province of Henan to try to draw the attention of central authorities to the issue by speaking to the foreign media.

"This is not discrimination by one single person but by an entire country," he told The Associated Press.