Outrage at capital’s HIV services funding cut (London)

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/05/31/outrage-at-capitals-hiv-services-funding-cut/

London HIV prevention groups have said they are outraged at the 20 per cent funding cut.

According to the BBC, the Inner North West London Primary Care Trust (PCT), which manages the Pan London HIV Prevention Programme, has cut the budget for 2011-12 by £516,000.

At the same time, the number of Londoners with HIV who contracted the infection in the UK has more than doubled since 2001 when the figure was 660, to 1,480 last year, according to latest figures.

The BBC’s Andy Dangerfield said: “In the capital, 28,000 people are living with HIV. This is about one in every 200 Londoners aged between 15 and 59 – a rate three times higher than any other region in England.”

According to the Terrence Higgins Trust, one in 10 gay men in the capital has HIV. Mark Delacour, from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Consortium, said that the cuts were short-sighted and would cost the capital more in the long run.

[dipsydoodle]

1. I think you'll find if you search

nothing other than "nhs funding cuts london" that there are cuts all round : not just on this issue.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Similar subject a bit closer to home

Cross post from Editorials :

Targeting Cuba’s Health-Care System.

In January, the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged. The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to combat the three deadly pandemics in 150 countries.

“This mean-spirited policy,” the Cuban government said, “aims to undermine the quality of service provided to the Cuban population and to obstruct the provision of medical assistance in over 100 countries by 40,000 Cuban health workers.”

Most of the funds are used to import expensive AIDS medication to Cuba, where antiretroviral treatment is provided free of charge to some 5,000 HIV patients.

The United States sees the Cuban health system and Havana’s sharing of such as a means of Cuba winning friends and allies in the Third World, particularly Latin America; a situation sharply in conflict with long-standing US policy to isolate Cuba.

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/06/04/targeting-cubas-health-care-system/