A SOCIAL worker, Arm Ly took to Twitter to share an incident which took place 8 years ago near Raya time. It was about a 15-year-old boy who went home with a HIV diagnosis and was never heard of again, until the news of his death.
The day the boy went home with the diagnosis, it was the day his nightmare started. The boy’s parents locked him up in an airtight room because they were ashamed to seek medical help for their son.
According to Arm Ly, the teen cried and messaged for help after he was locked in the room. The teen contracted HIV after engaging in unprotected same-sex intercourse and reached out to Arm Ly and his colleagues who are social workers. The poor boy even sent them his home address and described the location so that they could rescue him.
“I don’t want to die,” he wrote. “I want a purple Raya outfit, please come get me.”
When the ambulance arrived at his house, the paramedics received vitriol from the boy’s mum. As they carried out her son, she told them, “If you can, shorten his life span. He brings me misfortune.”
Once in the hospital, doctors tried pumping blood into his system in hopes that it will generate more oxygen to his brain. The social workers only visited him after he was moved to the CCU with a purple Raya outfit in tow.
“It was near to Raya, and we were hoping he would wake up (he had been unconscious for some time) and could celebrate Raya as per usual. I had told the nurse to wash him up before putting on the purple outfit,” Naj Mi, one of the social workers wrote in a Blogspot post.
The social workers couldn’t visit him as much as they wanted because they lived far from the hospital. One day, they received an email from the boy’s mum.
She emailed to say that her son has returned to Allah’s side. It was said he passed on due to complications caused by AIDS.
Netizens responded to Arm Ly’s post and pointed out that this could have been avoided if only the older generation aren’t limited to old beliefs and stigmas.
AIDS and HIV is still largely misunderstood and not many realize that there are treatment options now.
