Government under fire over HIV monitoring
By Catherine Best
June 26, 2007
THE Victorian health department's supervision of high-risk HIV carriers is under renewed scrutiny amid allegations another infected man engaged in unsafe sex.
Lam Kuoth, 28, is charged with reckless conduct endangering serious injury. He was today released on bail by a Geelong magistrate.
The charge relates to a 24-year-old woman Mr Kuoth allegedly had unprotected sex with on April 22.
The alleged offence occurred while Mr Kuoth was under the watch of the Department of Human Services (DHS).
Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the DHS began monitoring Mr Kuoth late last year but it wasn't until April that he was given a public health order and police were alerted as soon as the allegations emerged.
"This is an example of how the system can work well, there's been great co-operation between the department of human services and the police," Ms Pike said.
Mr Kuoth was detained at Thomas Embling Hospital for 28 days under an isolation order before being released on May 25.
Ms Pike said the alleged offence occurred before his incarceration.
"As soon as the department became aware that behaviour had escalated and there was a requirement for a public health order then that was put in place," she said.
"When the alleged offences were disclosed the department immediately notified police."
Ms Pike came under pressure to resign earlier this year over a series of departmental bungles involving the sexual exploits of four HIV positive men.
Chief health officer Dr Robert Hall was sacked after health chiefs were not advised an HIV-positive man accused of having sex with 16 people should be isolated from the community.
Dr Hall was also criticised for his handling of a food poisoning outbreak at a Melbourne nursing home.
Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said the latest alleged HIV case was a "dramatic failure" by the Government and occurred at the same time Ms Pike was peddling assurances that the system would be overhauled.
"But it seems we've had yet another failure," Mr Baillieu said.
The DHS is monitoring about 20 HIV positive people and an audit of the department's handling of HIV supervision was almost complete, Ms Pike said.
This is just disgusting. I wish the Government would just say "screw you UN, we're not accepting anymore immigrants from Africa and the Middle East."
Hopefully if we build nuclear power plants we can develop nuclear weapons... then we can at least afford to leave the UN and not abide by their ridiculous immigration requirements.
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