{"id":409583,"date":"2015-01-23T13:32:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T11:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moldova.org\/?p=409583"},"modified":"2015-01-23T13:32:40","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T11:32:40","slug":"meeting-the-mothers-with-hiv-who-refuse-doctors-recommendations-to-abort-their-babies-in-ukraine-and-moldova-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moldova.org\/en\/meeting-the-mothers-with-hiv-who-refuse-doctors-recommendations-to-abort-their-babies-in-ukraine-and-moldova-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting the mothers with HIV who refuse doctors\u2019 recommendations to abort their babies in Ukraine and Moldova"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

I meet Svetlana in a cafe in central Kyiv. She is 38 years old and a month away from giving birth to her first child.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFinding I was pregnant was very sudden,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

A sales consultant in a clothing shop, from 1994 until a few months ago, she injected\u00a0a Ukrainian form of heroin, shirka, which she made in her kitchen\u00a0or bought\u00a0in syringes from dealers. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Four times a day, she used\u00a0the mixture of home-grown poppies and chemicals, including at work. Her husband, an electrician, was also an addict.<\/span><\/p>\n

After she discovered she was pregnant, she took an HIV test, which revealed she was positive for the virus.<\/span><\/p>\n

She pauses and leans back.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought my life had stopped,\u201d she says, dragging her fingernails across her arm, to simulate slashing her wrists.<\/span><\/p>\n

When she consulted\u00a0a female gynecologist in a local hospital for a check-up, the reaction of the doctor – who knew\u00a0Svetlana\u2019s history – was immediate:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou should abort the child,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

But after searching for more information on the rights of drug users, she gained help from staff at a local organization, Convictus, who\u00a0informed her that she could give birth. And\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s medical system had to support her decision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She and her husband stopped injecting\u00a0and switched to a substitute for heroin – methadone – prescribed by medics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go back to shirka,\u201d says Svetlana. \u201cNow I have a new family. I have an idea for life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Svetlana plans to call the child Bogdana – which means ‘given\u00a0from God’.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recommendations to drug users with HIV to\u00a0abort children\u00a0are common among medical professionals in eastern Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling is the children will be born crazy, dead or sick,\u201d says Iulia Dorohova, a legal advisor\u00a0at Kyiv-based NGO helping people living with HIV, Vertical.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen have to be quite strong to stand up to doctors,\u201d I say, \u201cespecially when they are pregnant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dorohova\u00a0shrugs, dismissing my point.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUkrainian women are tough,\u201d she says. \u201cThey can stop a\u00a0horse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0“Doctors are afraid”<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Under the UN Declaration of Human Rights no one can face discrimination regarding his or her health status.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because drug addiction is classified as a health condition, users should receive the same treatment as others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The same declaration states that every person has a right to a family. Therefore coercing women into abortion\u00a0is an infringement of customary international\u00a0law.<\/span><\/p>\n

However in the medical systems in many countries in east Europe, the poor suffer because they can\u2019t pay bribes to doctors and nurses for care which should be free at the point of access.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drug addicts suffer because health workers believe they have created their own problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

HIV carriers suffer because medical staff are afraid of catching the virus, due to a lack of understanding of its behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Women from these demographics face even further prejudice because there is a prevailing assumption that a woman should be more responsible for her well-being than a man.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the medical system, HIV cases and drug addicts often have to stay in the queue,\u201d says Ala Iatco, deputy at \u2018Youth with the Right to Live\u2019 organization, Moldova. \u201cFor women there is more stigma.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is rare that doctors force women into abortions, but suggestions\u00a0for termination seem to be a common in Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

“In east Europe\u00a0women who use drugs, especially those with HIV, often face\u00a0discrimination during and after their pregnancy,” says\u00a0Olga Byelyayeva, technical support and information program officer at Eurasian Harm Reduction Network. “In\u00a0Ukraine, for instance,\u00a0this problem is rooted in the legislation –\u00a0according to the pregnancy protocol, drug users are being officially recommended to have an abortion.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In Balti, Moldova,\u00a0HIV carrier Maria\u00a0already had a healthy daughter when she was three months\u2019 pregnant with a child suspected of having Down\u2019s Syndrome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors told me to have an abortion,\u201d says the 35 year-old. \u201cA commission of medics convinced me I would give birth to a monster child. They told me: \u2018why do you want to condemn the baby?’ But I gave birth to a perfectly healthy child.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Moldovan Human rights group IDOM\u2019s head of litigation Natalia Mardari says the key is changing the mentality of\u00a0medical staff to respect the rights of people with HIV.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many doctors and nurses fear touching with people with HIV. In orthopedic surgery, doctors often refuse care to HIV patients, because interventions require heavy\u00a0contact with blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people have HIV, some doctors say \u2018we can\u2019t do anything\u2019 – they are afraid of surgery,\u201d says Mardari.<\/span><\/p>\n

Medical staff will often tell carriers to stay in a corner in the waiting room, far away from other patients.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is also little respect for confidentiality. Moldovan ex-drug user Maria says that when she was in the hospital, a nurse asked her how she contracted HIV. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI told the nurse: \u2018when you come to consult me, you shouldn\u2019t be\u00a0looking through my underwear\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A major problem is that medical care systems in these countries are under massive pressure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Moldova the\u00a0system suffers from doctors leaving to work abroad for higher salaries\u00a0and a lack of financing from central Government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile Ukraine’s state apparatus faces\u00a0economic collapse, endemic corruption and war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Both countries suffer from poverty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore first to face prejudice are\u00a0drug users and HIV carriers, because wider society views their conditions as the product of indulgent lifestyle choices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cNo money, no funny\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Bribery is widespread in the medical systems in ex-Communist nations, which is made more acute for those with HIV.<\/span><\/p>\n

I meet women who have sold all their gold to pay for lab tests, which should be free under state healthcare, or who bribed doctors with chocolate and cognac for laparoscopic surgery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kyiv-based Tatiana never used drugs. When she was seven months pregnant she had an HIV test, together with her husband. Both found out they had HIV and she had cancer of the cervix.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the son was three months\u2019 old, she went to a specialist hospital in oncology to treat her cancer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The doctors delayed her operation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me they do not have the drugs nor a place for me to stay,\u201d Tatiana\u00a0says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she came in to the hospital, she was treated like a \u2018white woman\u2019,\u201d adds legal advisor\u00a0Iulia Dorohova, who observed her case, \u201cbut as soon as they found out she was HIV, she was treated as rubbish.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But when Tatiana’s\u00a0mother began to pay off the doctors in cash, she received attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

To secure a consultation,\u00a0her mother would come to the hospital and put 500 Hrvnia (about 25 Euro) in the pocket of the doctor’s lab-coat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However one time she only had 300 Hrvnia (15 Euro). As per normal, she placed this amount in the doctor\u2019s coat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A minute later the doctor returned, disgusted, and threw the 300 Hrvnia into the woman\u2019s lap.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was too small an amount.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors\u00a0want money,\u201d says Dorohova, rubbing her fingers. \u201cNo money, no funny.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThey cut me and sewed me up like a dog\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Not only HIV patients\u00a0face discrimination, but also drug users with Hepatitis C, a highly infectious blood-borne virus which damages the liver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

29 year-old drug user Larisa from Balti, Moldova, recently had an ectopic pregnancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know I was pregnant,”\u00a0she says. \u201cI prepared for the operation. I was on the operating table, where a nurse told me: \u2018tell me about your sickness\u2019. I told them I had Hep C. She shouted this information to everyone in the hall of the hospital.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“They saw the tracks on my arm and their attitude changed. They cut me and sewed me up like a dog.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I stayed in the hospital, I prayed that they would give me pills so I could sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

“But when I asked the doctor for medication, he told me: \u2018All those drugs you took weren\u2019t enough, you want others?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cOnly after six months could I feel she was my baby\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0When drug users and HIV carriers give birth, a major problem is the attitude of medical staff to the\u00a0new mothers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the centre when I gave birth, no one cleaned,\u201d says Maria from Moldova. \u201cWith the child, no one helped. They told me: \u2018you are a mother with experience, carry this out alone\u2019. They make a fool out of you when they discover you have HIV.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Ukraine, all pregnant female drug users reported discrimination during and after labor, among\u00a0interviews for an EU-funded report in 2012 \u2018Violation of the right of female drug users to access to medical and social services\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most shocking aspects of this study were examples of\u00a0doctors\u00a0asking\u00a0female drug users to put\u00a0their babies\u00a0up for\u00a0adoption.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many drug using women give birth prematurely and medical staff often prevent them from seeing their newborns in the hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

Detailed in the report, Tetiana from Kyiv bore her baby at 28 weeks. The baby spent six months in an incubator, where the doctors saved her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was not allowed to see her,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were afraid of me because I was a drug user.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“They found various excuses. They said: \u2018You do not feed her? Then why do you have to be with her?\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“I did not see my baby because they wouldn\u2019t let me in her room for six months. I brought in medicine and milk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Only half a year\u00a0after her birth, could I have her in my arms, hug her and kiss her, and feel that she is my baby.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Bird<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to Oxana Greadcenco, Elena Gutanu, Irina Titica,\u00a0Lina Vdovii, Ilie Cazac, Inga Malisauskaite,\u00a0Erika Matuzaite\u00a0and the staff from the HIV Social Centers in Balti and Chisinau\u00a0for help with this article<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0This article was financed with the\u00a0Award for Best Initiatives of European Online Investigative Journalism,\u00a0Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, Florence, Italy) and\u00a0supported through moldova.org by ‘Fortification of the independence of online mass-media in the Republic of Moldova through the transfter of Know-how from the EU’ – with support from the ‘European Partnership for Democracy’ and financial resources from the ‘National Fund for Democracy’ (NED)<\/i>.<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>I meet Svetlana in a cafe in central Kyiv. She is 38 years old and a month away from giving birth to her first child. \u201cFinding I was pregnant was very sudden,\u201d she says. A sales consultant in a clothing shop, from 1994 until a few months ago, she injected\u00a0a Ukrainian form of heroin, shirka, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":409581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society"],"content_social_share":"Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

I meet Svetlana in a cafe in central Kyiv. She is 38 years old and a month away from giving birth to her first child.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFinding I was pregnant was very sudden,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

A sales consultant in a clothing shop, from 1994 until a few months ago, she injected\u00a0a Ukrainian form of heroin, shirka, which she made in her kitchen\u00a0or bought\u00a0in syringes from dealers. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Four times a day, she used\u00a0the mixture of home-grown poppies and chemicals, including at work. Her husband, an electrician, was also an addict.<\/span><\/p>\n

After she discovered she was pregnant, she took an HIV test, which revealed she was positive for the virus.<\/span><\/p>\n

She pauses and leans back.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought my life had stopped,\u201d she says, dragging her fingernails across her arm, to simulate slashing her wrists.<\/span><\/p>\n

When she consulted\u00a0a female gynecologist in a local hospital for a check-up, the reaction of the doctor – who knew\u00a0Svetlana\u2019s history – was immediate:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou should abort the child,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

But after searching for more information on the rights of drug users, she gained help from staff at a local organization, Convictus, who\u00a0informed her that she could give birth. And\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s medical system had to support her decision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She and her husband stopped injecting\u00a0and switched to a substitute for heroin – methadone – prescribed by medics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go back to shirka,\u201d says Svetlana. \u201cNow I have a new family. I have an idea for life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Svetlana plans to call the child Bogdana – which means ‘given\u00a0from God’.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recommendations to drug users with HIV to\u00a0abort children\u00a0are common among medical professionals in eastern Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling is the children will be born crazy, dead or sick,\u201d says Iulia Dorohova, a legal advisor\u00a0at Kyiv-based NGO helping people living with HIV, Vertical.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen have to be quite strong to stand up to doctors,\u201d I say, \u201cespecially when they are pregnant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dorohova\u00a0shrugs, dismissing my point.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUkrainian women are tough,\u201d she says. \u201cThey can stop a\u00a0horse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0“Doctors are afraid”<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Under the UN Declaration of Human Rights no one can face discrimination regarding his or her health status.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because drug addiction is classified as a health condition, users should receive the same treatment as others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The same declaration states that every person has a right to a family. Therefore coercing women into abortion\u00a0is an infringement of customary international\u00a0law.<\/span><\/p>\n

However in the medical systems in many countries in east Europe, the poor suffer because they can\u2019t pay bribes to doctors and nurses for care which should be free at the point of access.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drug addicts suffer because health workers believe they have created their own problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

HIV carriers suffer because medical staff are afraid of catching the virus, due to a lack of understanding of its behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Women from these demographics face even further prejudice because there is a prevailing assumption that a woman should be more responsible for her well-being than a man.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the medical system, HIV cases and drug addicts often have to stay in the queue,\u201d says Ala Iatco, deputy at \u2018Youth with the Right to Live\u2019 organization, Moldova. \u201cFor women there is more stigma.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is rare that doctors force women into abortions, but suggestions\u00a0for termination seem to be a common in Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

“In east Europe\u00a0women who use drugs, especially those with HIV, often face\u00a0discrimination during and after their pregnancy,” says\u00a0Olga Byelyayeva, technical support and information program officer at Eurasian Harm Reduction Network. “In\u00a0Ukraine, for instance,\u00a0this problem is rooted in the legislation –\u00a0according to the pregnancy protocol, drug users are being officially recommended to have an abortion.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In Balti, Moldova,\u00a0HIV carrier Maria\u00a0already had a healthy daughter when she was three months\u2019 pregnant with a child suspected of having Down\u2019s Syndrome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors told me to have an abortion,\u201d says the 35 year-old. \u201cA commission of medics convinced me I would give birth to a monster child. They told me: \u2018why do you want to condemn the baby?’ But I gave birth to a perfectly healthy child.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Moldovan Human rights group IDOM\u2019s head of litigation Natalia Mardari says the key is changing the mentality of\u00a0medical staff to respect the rights of people with HIV.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many doctors and nurses fear touching with people with HIV. In orthopedic surgery, doctors often refuse care to HIV patients, because interventions require heavy\u00a0contact with blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people have HIV, some doctors say \u2018we can\u2019t do anything\u2019 – they are afraid of surgery,\u201d says Mardari.<\/span><\/p>\n

Medical staff will often tell carriers to stay in a corner in the waiting room, far away from other patients.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is also little respect for confidentiality. Moldovan ex-drug user Maria says that when she was in the hospital, a nurse asked her how she contracted HIV. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI told the nurse: \u2018when you come to consult me, you shouldn\u2019t be\u00a0looking through my underwear\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A major problem is that medical care systems in these countries are under massive pressure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Moldova the\u00a0system suffers from doctors leaving to work abroad for higher salaries\u00a0and a lack of financing from central Government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile Ukraine’s state apparatus faces\u00a0economic collapse, endemic corruption and war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Both countries suffer from poverty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore first to face prejudice are\u00a0drug users and HIV carriers, because wider society views their conditions as the product of indulgent lifestyle choices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cNo money, no funny\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Bribery is widespread in the medical systems in ex-Communist nations, which is made more acute for those with HIV.<\/span><\/p>\n

I meet women who have sold all their gold to pay for lab tests, which should be free under state healthcare, or who bribed doctors with chocolate and cognac for laparoscopic surgery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kyiv-based Tatiana never used drugs. When she was seven months pregnant she had an HIV test, together with her husband. Both found out they had HIV and she had cancer of the cervix.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the son was three months\u2019 old, she went to a specialist hospital in oncology to treat her cancer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The doctors delayed her operation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me they do not have the drugs nor a place for me to stay,\u201d Tatiana\u00a0says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she came in to the hospital, she was treated like a \u2018white woman\u2019,\u201d adds legal advisor\u00a0Iulia Dorohova, who observed her case, \u201cbut as soon as they found out she was HIV, she was treated as rubbish.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But when Tatiana’s\u00a0mother began to pay off the doctors in cash, she received attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

To secure a consultation,\u00a0her mother would come to the hospital and put 500 Hrvnia (about 25 Euro) in the pocket of the doctor’s lab-coat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However one time she only had 300 Hrvnia (15 Euro). As per normal, she placed this amount in the doctor\u2019s coat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A minute later the doctor returned, disgusted, and threw the 300 Hrvnia into the woman\u2019s lap.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was too small an amount.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors\u00a0want money,\u201d says Dorohova, rubbing her fingers. \u201cNo money, no funny.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThey cut me and sewed me up like a dog\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Not only HIV patients\u00a0face discrimination, but also drug users with Hepatitis C, a highly infectious blood-borne virus which damages the liver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

29 year-old drug user Larisa from Balti, Moldova, recently had an ectopic pregnancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know I was pregnant,”\u00a0she says. \u201cI prepared for the operation. I was on the operating table, where a nurse told me: \u2018tell me about your sickness\u2019. I told them I had Hep C. She shouted this information to everyone in the hall of the hospital.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“They saw the tracks on my arm and their attitude changed. They cut me and sewed me up like a dog.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I stayed in the hospital, I prayed that they would give me pills so I could sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

“But when I asked the doctor for medication, he told me: \u2018All those drugs you took weren\u2019t enough, you want others?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cOnly after six months could I feel she was my baby\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0When drug users and HIV carriers give birth, a major problem is the attitude of medical staff to the\u00a0new mothers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the centre when I gave birth, no one cleaned,\u201d says Maria from Moldova. \u201cWith the child, no one helped. They told me: \u2018you are a mother with experience, carry this out alone\u2019. They make a fool out of you when they discover you have HIV.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Ukraine, all pregnant female drug users reported discrimination during and after labor, among\u00a0interviews for an EU-funded report in 2012 \u2018Violation of the right of female drug users to access to medical and social services\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most shocking aspects of this study were examples of\u00a0doctors\u00a0asking\u00a0female drug users to put\u00a0their babies\u00a0up for\u00a0adoption.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many drug using women give birth prematurely and medical staff often prevent them from seeing their newborns in the hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

Detailed in the report, Tetiana from Kyiv bore her baby at 28 weeks. The baby spent six months in an incubator, where the doctors saved her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was not allowed to see her,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were afraid of me because I was a drug user.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“They found various excuses. They said: \u2018You do not feed her? Then why do you have to be with her?\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“I did not see my baby because they wouldn\u2019t let me in her room for six months. I brought in medicine and milk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Only half a year\u00a0after her birth, could I have her in my arms, hug her and kiss her, and feel that she is my baby.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Bird<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to Oxana Greadcenco, Elena Gutanu, Irina Titica,\u00a0Lina Vdovii, Ilie Cazac, Inga Malisauskaite,\u00a0Erika Matuzaite\u00a0and the staff from the HIV Social Centers in Balti and Chisinau\u00a0for help with this article<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0This article was financed with the\u00a0Award for Best Initiatives of European Online Investigative Journalism,\u00a0Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, Florence, Italy) and\u00a0supported through moldova.org by ‘Fortification of the independence of online mass-media in the Republic of Moldova through the transfter of Know-how from the EU’ – with support from the ‘European Partnership for Democracy’ and financial resources from the ‘National Fund for Democracy’ (NED)<\/i>.<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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