“It was very, very bad treatment that I received,” recalls Mercedes (not her real name), a young mother living with HIV.
Five years ago—at one of the largest maternity hospitals in the Dominican Republic—she was diagnosed as HIV-positive. Although she enrolled in the hospital’s program to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), she felt discriminated against for her status, and that the health workers’ actions toward her lacked compassion.
But she decided her experience as a victim of stigma would not stand in her way of helping other HIV-positive pregnant women. Read more »
