Le combat d’un homme atteint du VIH et menacé par la fermeture de l’association Gaps

Exil forced and fight against the disease, a man contaminated by HIV tells his story. One of the 450 people welcomed by the Gaps association, which has been supporting people with AIDS for 35 years and is now threatened with closure after its funding was stopped by the ARS.

With hands clasped and eyes vacant, Fabrice*, originally from an Eastern European country, tries to remember the discovery of his illness. “It was at the end of the 90s. I had gone to Moscow for work. I had to take medical tests and that’s when I was told that I had HIV,” said the man.

For this married father, the news was painful. “I had to tell my wife so that she could also get tested, it was very difficult,” he said. The tests were negative: his wife was not infected. A piece of good news that would, however, be the starting point of one of the most difficult decisions of his life.

I finally chose to leave, so as not to risk transmitting the virus to my wife or child.

This decision, Fabrice made in 2014, nearly twenty years after the discovery of his illness, and as many years of suffering. “They called me the walking corpse. Some came to see me to tell me that they would have to kill me,” explained the man who worked in retail.

Stigmatized, Fabrice changed jobs and fields several times, without success. “Society didn’t want me, I couldn’t build anything,” sighed Fabrice. He then decided to divorce and flee the country that hated him, in Eastern Europe, for France. “I knew nothing about France, or if I would be able to stay. I put my finger on the map, and I came,” he said.

For 20 years, Fabrice has been treating his illness, AIDS. Pills that he takes daily. In France, it was initially his mother who sent him his medication, in packages of three months, via a bus. “But the driver questioned her a lot, she faced discrimination. When he arrived, he pointed me out loud as the HIV patient,” Fabrice regretted.

Then one day, this driver refused to deliver the treatment. “It was over, I didn’t know how I could make it. I still spoke French badly,” he said.

First instinct, on the internet, he contacted the Aids center, which directed him to Gaps, the only association in Gironde that supports HIV patients. They managed to get him treatment, and arranged for him to meet a social worker. “Without them, I wouldn’t be here today to testify,” Fabrice said.

Today, Fabrice is happy to say “U=U”. This means that HIV is now undetectable and non-transmissible. Like him, 450 people are welcomed each year in the facility located within Saint-André Hospital in Bordeaux, including 80 new people each year.

Medical, psychological, and social support, meeting with other patients, the association offers comprehensive support. However, they have just learned, after three years of gradual reductions in subsidies, that the ARS will stop funding them from 2024, as their mission no longer fits into its specifications.

Their grant represents €300,000, or 70% of our total budget. Without it, we will disappear,” said Guylène Madeline, director of the Group of Psychological and Social Help (Gaps), distraught.

In a report submitted to the regional health authority, she hopes to be able to find common ground to adapt to the new criteria of the regional health plan.

Fabrice*: The name has been changed to guarantee anonymity.