Singapore: The Straits Times, 23 June 2003.

Aiding those in need. By Wong Kim Hoh

She used to prowl Singapore's red-light districts, talking to prostitutes and
promiscuous men about sexually-transmitted diseases. That job led Iris Verghese
to become a care-giver for AIDS patients and a crusader for AIDS awareness
today.

IN 1985, Mrs Iris Verghese came face to face with Singapore's first diagnosed
AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) patient. Then a health worker with
the now-defunct Middle Road Hospital, Mrs Verghese - like most Singaporeans
during that time - had hardly any knowledge of the HIV virus. In the United
States, the first AIDS cases occured in 1981.

"The patient was a homosexual. The hospital asked me to talk to him because they
thought I could handle it. He started crying," the 57-year wisp of a woman
recalls. "I've got nothing except my ears and my arms, so I listened and hugged
him. I did what came naturally."

A doctor told her: "You're very daring. What if the disease was air-borne?"
Whatever reservations that remark provoked in her did not last long.

"I thought to myself: Mother Teresa treated lepers, but she never got infected.
If my heart is clear, I don't think anything will happen to me," says Mrs
Verghese, who is married to 59-year-old Martin Verghese, a PSA trainer. The
couple have two sons aged 31 and 28.

Indeed, nothing has happened to Mrs Verghese in the 30 years that she has worked
as a health worker, first as a contact-tracer for sexually-transmitted diseases
(STDs), and now as an HIV Programme Assistant for the Communicable Disease
Centre (CDC).

HER HUSBAND WAS IN THE DARK

SHE has been through a lot, though. It is hard to believe that the kindly
matron spent nearly 15 years prowling Singapore's red-light districts such as
Johor Road.

As contact-tracer for Middle Road Hospital from 1974 to 1988, she had to
frequent brothels, bars and other unsavoury establishments where she met
prostitutes, bar girls, transvestites, gangsters and other colourful denizens of
the night. Her job was to trace and persuade those who might have contracted
STDs to go for treatment at the hospital.

The second of eight children of a Chinese accounts clerk and an Eurasian
housewife, Mrs Verghese became a student nurse upon completing her O levels. She
started work at the Middle Road Hospital after the birth of her first son,
Christopher, who is now a manager. At first, she feared her husband's
disapproval and kept him in the dark about the nature of her job.

"One elderly lady told me, "Your husband doesn't know you go to these red-light
areas? You want to die? If your friends or his friends see you, they may think
you are a prostitute."

Fortunately, Mr Verghese, who is Indian, proved to be a very enlightened soul.
Very soon, he was chauffeuring her as she knocked on doors counselling
prostitutes and teaching promiscuous old men how to use condoms.

It was hard work. Traumatised by news that they might be diseased, prostitutes
and bar girls would sometimes hurl abuse and obscenities at her.

"Aiyoh, some of the bad words they used I've never even heard of. But I'd just
sit there, bear with it and when they've finished, I'd go: "Finish? Now, my
turn." Then I'd use reverse psychology and tell them gently how they would not
get any business if they don't go for treatment. It always worked."

As she has a way with people, many of those she came into contact with grew to
like her, even the pimps and whorehouse owners. One even offered her a job in a
brothel.

"She said, "Air-con job, very cushy, no need to spoil your skin walking in the
sun"," she recalls. With her experience, it was only natural that she was asked
to counsel Singapore's first AIDS patients. "There was so much fear and stigma
attached to the disease. And I know what it's like to be stigmatised," she said.
"When I married my husband, a lot of people asked me why and said hurtful things
like "Your children will be very black".

She had few resources to count on when she first started. "There was so little
information available. But I picked things up very quickly".

"In fact, I am now so good I can even go to scientific conferences and
understand what is going on. I did it myself, I made things happen," she says
proudly.

Indeed, her hard work and selfless dedication have earned her not just the
gratitude of HIV patients and their families, but also numerous invitations to
overseas conferences. Since 1990, she has attended as well as chaired sessions
and delivered papers on AIDS-related issues in several countries, including
Japan, Switzerland, Spain and Germany.

Breaking into peals of laughter, she admits to having a big vocabulary of sexual
jargon. "I know all about barebacking," she says, referring to the unsafe
practice of unprotected anal sex between gay men. "I have to know these things.
If not, how can I counsel people?"

By her own estimation, she has counselled more than 1,000 PWAs (people with
AIDS) as well as their kith and kin, both here and abroad. In the early days,
she would often get calls in the middle of the night. Her husband would then
bundle the sleeping children in their car and drive
her to meet her patients. "If they were not asleep, they would be listening to
the radio in the car. That's why my sons are so musical," she says. Her second
son Kevin, a trainer with a cosmetics company, once sang in a band.

A HEAVY EMOTIONAL TOLL

SOME cases exerted a heavy emotional toll. She remembers an AIDS patient -
who became one of her best volunteers - whose husband and one-year-old baby
were also infected with the disease.

"The husband chose to go to a neighbouring country for traditional therapy.
She had to choose between staying with him and caring for her sick baby
here.

"She chose the latter. When the husband died, I had to relay the news to
her," she recalls, eyes getting red. The woman and her baby have also since
died. There was another AIDS victim who wanted to visit his old school, but died
before he managed to do so. "I made arrangements with a few of his friends who
carried his coffin to the school chapel before taking it to the crematorium."

She is proudest, however, of some AIDS patients who band together to
"organise activities and take the initiative to do things for themselves.
Some even fork out money to help others with medication. Does she cry in
front of her patients? "Of course, and I tell my patients it's all right to
cry. It is a release. We live in a real world, we have to be real."

Cross posted from HIV-News-AsiaPacific@...