[Continued from yesterday]

By N. Niranjan Nikam

Star of Mysore (SOM): STD has gone down by 90 %?

Dr. Gilada: In Skin and STD Department for MD exams these days the students do not get good STD cases for study. They have to call other medical colleges to find out if there are any cases of STD reported for exams the next day. Earlier, we would collect a lot in one day at JJ Hospital.

SOM: How has it come down?

Dr. Gilada: It is because many are using condoms when they visit sex workers as protection against infection. Hence, today the numbers have reduced.

SOM: Have the numbers of prostitutes in red light area come down?

Dr. Gilada: Earlier there would be traffic jam, now we can pass through easily. Three-fourths of the red light area in Mumbai has been converted into commercial zone.

SOM: Oh really?

Dr. Gilada: Oh yes, it is converted into small-scale industries, shops; it is like demand and supply; if demand reduces, supply reduces.

SOM: Is it because of AIDS scare?

Dr. Gilada: Yes, it is AIDS scare. But there was no other scare at that time. You see STDs were omnipresent and it is called ‘king of diseases’ and ‘disease of kings’; so those days most of the kings died of syphilis. Historically if you see, they died playing horse polo, elephant polo or syphilis.

SOM: So in the last 32 years it has come down…

Dr. Gilada: Today’s youth have become very choosy. Earlier 50 per cent of the clients in the red light areas were college-going students, now there are very few college students. So that pattern has changed from sex worker to a call girl, now call girl to massage parlours. That change has happened every ten to fifteen years. Between 1990s – 2000 it was mainly call girl; now 2005 onwards it is massage parlours.

SOM: I believe massage parlours are also closing down.

Dr. Gilada: Youths need outlet and it may necessarily not be just penetration. Suppose they go for massage, they feel better with just the touch of a woman. They may not have sex at all and they are fine with that. We being STD specialists, all we would like to see is if there is reduction in STD rate, we are not bothered about the morality part of it at all.

SOM: But is it not an irony that the Central Government has come out with a new rule that says condom ads cannot be shown on television during the day, as it will affect children?

Dr. Gilada: One cannot and should not restrict timings for condom ads. It is like any other protection such as helmet, cricketer’s pads, abdomen guards, umbrella and rain coats! It’s like protect or perish! India has two major problems — population and HIV/ STDs. Both are result of unwanted and unprotected sex. Only one device that can prevent both is condom. Then why stop it!

Similar attempt during the regime of Sushma Swaraj as Union Health Minister had backfired in 2003. The government should learn lessons from previous experiences than repeating same mistakes.

India is world leader in the fight against aids and one of the largest condom manufacturers globally. Such retrograde moves push India in reverse gear.

SOM: You are the President of AIDS Society of India (ASI), a professional body of doctors in HIV care. What does your organisation do?

Dr. Gilada: It is like any professional association just like Surgeons Association, Anaesthetists Association or OBG Association; so it is an Association of Physicians of HIV, managing people. We are about 650 all  over the country. We started in 2000  and Dr. Suniti Solomon was also the President for three years. I have been the  Secretary General and now as  President for the seventh year.

SOM: I heard that the international conference on AIDS is going to be held in India for the first time?

Dr. Gilada: We had a National Conference on Oct. 8, 2017, at Hyderabad. We bid for International Conference for 6,000 people, which has never taken place in India. We are three contenders — Brazil, Mexico and India. They have already had one field visit and two more may come, probably we may get but we cannot say until the results are out. It will be held at India Expo Mart in Greater Noida.

We started this ASI Conference in 2005 and I took a daring step announcing that the conferences will have no smoking and no alcohol. Till today no ASI programmes have served alcohol. ASI is a registered Charitable Trust; that means you are collecting money from people for a cause and nowhere are you saying it is for alcohol. Even the Medical Council of India and Indian Medical Association have come out with a strict mandate that alcohol is not served in the conferences.

SOM: In 1995 you started the Unison Medicare and Research Centre, India’s first comprehensive medicare clinic managing 6,500 patients currently. How is this possible to manage so many patients?

Dr. Gilada: I have patients from a new-born to almost an 82-year-old. Not all 6,500 patients from all over the country come every day. They come once in three or six months or one year depending on when we have called them; they are all HIV patients.  My idea was that a person with HIV should have everything under one roof. They should be treated in a way that they come in by 11 am and should be out by 5.30 pm with all the reports, medicine and counselling, consultation, x-ray, sonography, investigation and go back with medication.  We buy medicines from companies and we get discount and it can be passed on to the patient. Since investigations are done at our place, we need not outsource anything; it is no commission clinic from the very first day.

SOM: You have also spoken against Bhagwan Rajneesh, popularly known as Osho and his view on free sex.

Dr. Gilada: I read a statement on Rajneesh, which was widely published in newspapers. It said that he had loss of weight, insomnia, nausea, no appetite, bad eyesight and a minor ear infection, which was not healing despite several course of antibiotics. I wrote to the Chief Secretary of Government of Maharashtra that the symptom he is describing fits into the category of HIV/AIDS. Especially, when he is publicly professing and practicing multi-partner sex. I wrote, “A free-sex culture cannot be an AIDS-free culture.”  That led to a raging controversy and his disciples came to kill me. I was given round-the-clock Police protection for over six months by the State government. The controversy rested only after he went through HIV test at National Institute of Virology in Pune. I do not want to go into the details of that test.

SOM: It is very interesting to see that you are currently writing two books — History and Politics of AIDS and Prostitution in India. First, what is this politics of AIDS about?

Dr. Gilada: Politics of AIDS is basically some sort of episodic reaction from 1987- 1988 about HIV, which is widespread. If they topped the world in STDs they will top in HIV also but nobody listened to us.

It was only when the World Bank came with the kitty, suddenly your estimate goes up from hundred thousand to one million, so these are politics of AIDS and finance.

I will narrate an interesting incident. I was assigned ambulance duty as a punishment. It was the time when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister. He visited Bombay and I went in the ambulance with two other doctors carrying O negative blood.

I thought if I get a chance, I would submit a letter to him that I have been punished and sent on this duty.  But there was no chance to give the letter in the motorcade. Rajiv Gandhi was a nice human being. He was staying in The Taj and when he came back to the hotel, he called everybody who was escorting him. He asked, ‘Gentlemen do you want to say anything?’

I had carried the letter in my pocket and submitted it to him stating that I started the AIDS clinic, but it is not recognised. He told me he had heard about it. Chief Minister Shivaji Rao Nilangekar Patil was seated right next to him and he said he knew about me. Then they sanctioned the equipment, lab and everything. However, when it came, it was given to KMRC.

I met the PM and I did everything. This was like fighting against a disease or a person I don’t know. I quit government service and took the resignation to my Director. I told her, I am fighting two viruses, one is HIV virus, the other is the government virus. I am a small man and cannot fight against two viruses. So I would like to give up my fight against one virus that is the government virus.

I wanted government to be on my side to fight HIV. I told her, ‘You know, I have three things: one, my character is clean, two, I am not corrupt and three, no dereliction of duty.’ She was shivering. After all, she was a Director who has 5,000 doctors under her. I threw my resignation letter and went away. I have no regrets. I always consider government is the biggest charity. There can be no comparable charity including Tata, Birla, Ambani or Adani. Those of us who have worked in the government have enough material for learning, understanding and compassion. I learnt all of it during my work in the government.

SOM: What is it you are writing about the oldest profession in the world?

Dr. Gilada: I am not taking about general society, which will always think that if there is no prostitution, society will always be clean. Women organisations, which are supposed to be caretakers of every downtrodden woman in the society, say that prostitution must be there. However, they speak sitting in ivory towers. I ask them okay in that case can you contribute one girl per family for prostitution. You want only somebody else’s daughter to suffer.

You have to rehabilitate sex workers. They said no, if we keep them at our homes, we have to always guard our husbands. What kind of attitude you have? You want sex workers to continue but you do not want to rehabilitate them. You do not want the trade licensed.

For instance, when there was licensed prostitution industry in the US, they made a statement saying that it is safer to have sex with sex workers than housewives in Nevada. Sex workers could control STD but housewives could not. We wanted that kind of system but it did not happen here.

SOM: Finally, has AIDS gone?

Dr. Gilada: No, AIDS will not go away; it can only go down. Even diphtheria, which is a vaccine preventable disease, there are 12 deaths and hundreds suffering from it. Honour and dignity does not come to this disease and nobody comes out openly.

However, AIDS has become manageable and treatable. Today, 92 per cent of AIDS patients in the world are taking Indian medicines because it is affordable and we are able to produce it at low costs.

SOM: Asha Kirana Charitable Trust has completed 20 years of service to the people infected with AIDS. As a person dedicated to this kind of work, what is your view about the role of Dr. S. N. Mothi and his team?

Dr. Gilada: Sometimes some spark comes. People might say, if Dr. Mothi had not done it somebody else would have done it. But that is not true.

The kind of initiative he and his team have taken will have larger impact. So Asha Kirana is going to be a ray of hope for lot of people who are going to work in this field.

Earlier it was very difficult to collect money or arrange something to save children from dying. Now they need not die.

Today we tell our HIV patients to bring a bond, we will sign that I will not allow you to die of HIV. So that kind of medicines have come. During those days, it was not there. To have compassion and start something with a vision, I think Dr. Mothi has done a wonderful job.