‘Large number of people at risk are not coming forward for routine HIV tests’, says poet

A HEALTH trust has just revealed a poetical force to help launch its HIV awareness campaign focussing on heterosexual and West Indian communities – Benjamin Zephaniah.

The Rasta poet and novelist returned to his West Midland roots to head up the Know Your Status campaign on HIV diagnosis, spearheaded by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust at Sandwell Hospital in West Bromwich.

Alarmingly, both Birmingham and Sandwell have been considered “areas of high HIV prevalence” for a number of years. At Sandwell’s Dartmouth Clinic, a new patient is diagnosed with HIV every week.

In 2013 alone, 30 per cent of newly diagnosed patients were of African Caribbean ethnicity, and 82 per cent were homosexual.

Amardeep Singh, lead pharmacist at the Dartmouth Clinic said: “The major problem, we feel, is that a large number of people at risk are not coming forward for routine HIV tests or necessarily being tested routinely by their GPs.

“The aim of this scheme is to remove the stigma associated with HIV and normalise the test, so it is seen like any other blood test. Stigma and a lack of knowledge are barriers to people coming forward for routine testing. We want to promote a mindset that having a test is a way of empowering oneself.”

He added: “Ultimately it is better to know your health status and access free, life-saving care than to continue ignorant and potentially develop a life threatening illness in hospital.

“HIV is still viewed by many as an infection that affects gay men. While the numbers of gay men being diagnosed has increased sharply, they are also a community that is more likely to access HIV testing through sexual health clinics and Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) support groups.”

Singh praised the way Zephaniah agreed to join the campaign after they met by chance at City Hospital in Birmingham just over a year ago when the poet was visiting his dying step-father.

“Despite all the stress of his situation, Benjamin agreed to help us and that underlines the kind of person he is. He is crucial to our campaign because he is such a respected figure.”

Zephaniah himself was reluctant to be held up as a role model, but agreed that too many health issues were regarded as taboo, particularly in the macho world of the African Caribbean male.

“I remember when I did a programme for the BBC in the mid-1990s about male infertility, as I am infertile myself,” he said.

“A lot of men came up to me quietly afterwards and said how much the programme had helped them, but a fellow poet, who is quite happy to talk about racism and other controversial topics, said to me: ‘You should be ashamed of yourself talking like that.’”

Zephaniah, whose mother was a trained State Registered Nurse, has also lifted the lid on taboos surrounding prostate cancer when he wrote a comic play in 2008 called “De Botty Business”, which he said even his agent discouraged him from writing as cancer and comedy don’t sit well together.

The poet, who has appeared in the BBC2 series Peaky Blinders and spends much of his time in China, said: “We need to talk about these issues within our own community.

“Even when I went back to Handsworth last night, where I was born, and told people I had come to Birmingham to support this HIV campaign, I got some strange looks.

“At the end of the day if someone sees my face on a poster about this campaign and they like my poetry – or even if they don’t – it might prompt them to take action. It’s as simple as that. HIV is just three letters – it’s not a sentence.”