Happy couple raise funds for GHT!

posted: 24/08/2010

A huge thank you to Mike and Andrew Page Fielding who celebrated tying the knot by raising nearly £200 for George House Trust! Mike and Andrew asked guests at their Civil Partnership to make a donation to support our work.

George House Trust is the largest provider of HIV social care in the North West of England. We support over 2000 people living with HIV. Your support makes a lot of difference to the people we work with. We're a small charity. No amount of money raised is every too small. Every penny counts!

If you are interested in raising money for us, please get in touch by emailing fundraising@ght.org.uk and we will work with you to turn your idea into action!
 

The Future of Immigration Legal Help

posted: 05/08/2010

Face the Facts on Radio 4 explores the tough problems effective community immigration and asylum advice organisations are facing from the government. Free immigration and asylum legal help is under threat from government policy and practice. The programme includes Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit who do so much to help many people living with HIV.

Immigration advice in crisis

An asylum seeker takes his own life after his lawyers go into administration; a man and his family are thrown into detention because they've unwittingly been given false papers by an unscrupulous immigration adviser; a woman who's fled torture but hasn't been able to see her children for years because of bungling lawyers.

Their experiences cost them money and heartache. But poor legal advice can cost all of us in the long run if wrongly advised clients end up appealing their decision, or people, who've been told incorrectly that they can stay, then have to be removed from the country at the taxpayers' expense.
 

Government cuts and changes imperil lives

Changes to the way legal aid is paid have made the system "unsustainable". Asylum lawyers can now wait years for legal aid payments to be settled.

John Waite talks to some of the hundreds of committed advisers who have been forced out of their jobs because they either can't make it pay - or can't do the job properly any more. And he asks the Legal Services Commission to justify a false economy and a failure of justice.

Listen Again

This Face the Facts programe (half an hour long) was broadcast this lunchtime (Thu 5 August) but it is repeated on Sunday 8 Aug at 9pm in the evening on BBC Radio 4

You can also Listen Now online

This article in the Guardian discusses the need for better decisions by the UK Borders Agency on asylum claims because poor intial decisions add to legal aid bills for appeals.

Help Save Immigration Aid Unit

posted: 09/07/2010

Vital legal help with immigration and asylum problems for people with HIV (and many other people) is threatened. The Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, which gives excellent help to people with HIV, is to have its funding from the government cut. Our leading regional Immigration Aid Unit will no longer be able to provide 70% of the help that it does now.
 

Immigration aid funding cuts

The Legal Services Commission told them at the end of June that their legal aid contract will be cut from October 2010. Last month another major excellent immigration aid unit in London, Refugee and Migrant Justice, (which also had offices in Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle and Nottingham), was forced to close down.
 

Save our Immigration Aid Unit
We can’t let this happen in Greater Manchester. The Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU) does exceptional work for people with HIV and immigration and asylum problems. We and they need you to help us fight this massive funding cut.
 

The GMIAU works with some of the most vulnerable people for whom the asylum system has already done an injustice. Daily they see people who have been unrepresented because they weren't able to get legal advice, or they got advice for their asylum claim but when it came to appeal their legal representative turned them away - because the work isn't 'profitable'.
See below for more details on what is happening – Statement from the Immigration Aid Unit
 

How they want you to help

This is what you can do

• Come to the public meeting at GMIAU on Monday 19th July at 6.30 pm. Everyone is welcome. GMIAU is at 1 Delaunays Road, Crumpsall Green, Manchester M8 4QS Directions, public transport travel and map here
• Contact your local MP. You can use the 'contact your politician' green and yellow box on their website. Please do it now and when you get replies email or post copies of the replies to the Immigration Aid Unit .
  Point out to your MP what a valuable service they provide and how they rely on organisations, including GMIAU, to help their constituents. Without the GMIAU their advice surgery queues will get longer and their work will become much harder. Around 1,500 people with HIV in NW England (25% of all those living with HIV), most of whom live in Greater Manchester, are not British Citizens and many of them have complex asylum and immigration problems. Get your MP to pledge their support.
• email / write to the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor
  Rt.Hon.Kenneth Clarke QC MP
  Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor
  Ministry of Justice
  102 Petty France
  London
  SW1H OAL
  email Ken Clarke through this address
• Write to the Minister for Justice
  Damian Green MP
  Minister for Immigration
  Home Office
  2 Marsham Street
  London
  SW1 4DF
• please email a copy all replies please to Denise the director of the Immigration Aid Unit
• Ask your Trade Union or Professional Body to back the campaign.
  Skilled and experienced immigration caseworkers across the country are losing their jobs as a result of cuts to legal aid for more complex cases.
• Become a supporter of GMIAU.
  Support the work of GMIAU by getting friends and colleagues to sign up as a supporter and offering to do work for us (all assistance with legal action welcome), donate or fundraise.
  Email Denise to sign up.
   

More information on campaigning for Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit
For more information please email Denise McDowell, Director  or ring 0161-741 2646.
 

Statement from the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit
Statement about our position since the announcement of the outcome of the legal aid contracts for immigration.
 

This is the latest evidence of damage to the advice sector by the Legal Services Commission (LSC).

After three years of preparation, and several delays, the outcome of the national tendering round seems to have hinged upon whether an organisation ticked a box to say that they had applied for a level 3 caseworker to gain 1 point. This is so ludicrous as to be almost laughable. Except that of course it's not funny at all.
 

The LSC have damaged immigration legal aid beyond repair.
 

This will mean that people needing quality representation will be detrimentally affected. It will mean that there will be even more people standing unrepresented before the courts.
 

Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit remains committed to providing a high quality service to people affected by immigration control. Whilst the cut will affect the number of people we can see who are funded through legal aid we remain as committed as ever to the people we are here to serve - people affected by immigration control. Over the next few weeks and months we will be taking action to manage this situation including seeking to secure alternative funding to continue the work.
YOUR SUPPORT IS CRUCIAL.
THANK YOU

HIV Babies At Risk?

posted: 08/06/2010

The drug giant Bristol Myers Squibb seems about to shut down their factory in France that makes the only cheap HIV treatment drug that keeps up to 7,000 babies alive in the developing world. Bristol Myers Squibb’s chief executive Lamberto Andreotti has so far ignored a letter of protest from some of the board members of UNITAID – the part of the UN that aims to improve access to HIV treatments in poor countries, especially in Africa.
 

On their website UNITAID say

‘it is deeply concerned that the provision of a key paediatric AIDS medicine produced by Bristol Myers Squibb will be interrupted in June 2010 until at least April 2011. The medicine, didanosine 25 mg and 50 mg, is supplied by UNITAID through the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to between 4,000-7,000 infants in 40 countries. Interruption of treatment would seriously jeopardize these young children's survival.
 

UNITAID urges Bristol Myers Squibb to take all the necessary measures to ensure continued supply of quality, lifesaving didanosine 25 mg and 50 mg for the duration of its transition of its manufacturing site so as to avoid interruption of treatment for the children whose lives depend on it. UNITAID will continue to monitor the situation closely.’
 

Public Letter

Since the drug giant has not replied, UNITAID board members, representing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and communities affected by HIV/AIDS of the Geneva-based organisation, have gone public with their complaint and plea.
This is what they say:
 

Dear Mr Andreotti,
We, the UNITAID board members representing NGOs, and Communities affected by HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, are writing to you to express our deep concern that Bristol-Myers Squibb is to close a factory in France that manufactures a second line anti-retroviral medicine for children infected with HIV/AIDS who weigh less than 10 kg: buffered didanosine (ddI) in the 25 mg formulation.

Closing this factory means that 4,000 to 7,000 babies currently enrolled in treatment plans in developing countries through UNITAID could be left without the medicines they need. Didanosine is the last therapeutic option for these babies and without it they may die. We understand that closure of the plant will take place in June of this year, with no plans for resumption of production before April of 2011 at the earliest when a new plant is due to open. Therefore there is likely to be a shortage of approximately 15,000 packs of ddI 25 mg, across all UNITAID beneficiary countries between now and when production is expected to resume in April 2011. Currently, there is no alternative generic product that has been assessed by WHO and prequalified for use by UN agencies.

We urge you, as the Chief Executive Officer of BMS, a company that prides itself on its high standards of corporate responsibility, to respond urgently to our concerns, outlining the steps you will take to avoid any treatment interruption. We would also like your confirmation that a BMS plant will resume production of this vital medicine in 2011.

We look forward to hearing from you.
 

Source

image

Saving AIDS Support Grant

posted: 26/05/2010

Before the election, the end of ring-fenced AIDS Support Grant for local councils was announced. The new coalition government has now said it will phase out all types of ring-fenced grants for councils.
 

National AIDS Trust has now written to Paul Burstow (Lib Dem, Sutton & Cheam in Surrey), the new Minister for State for Social Care Services, setting out the need to continue to ring-fence AIDS Support Grant after 2011.

It has also written to Anne Milton, the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Public Health.

The new Government has emphasised the importance of public health interventions, and NAT stress the potential public health implications of removing of the ring-fence. Because of this, and given the recent commitment to phase out ring-fenced grants for local authorities, NAT also suggests that the Grant could be paid to PCTs instead, rather than local authorities.
 

Add Your Voice

Organisations and individuals may wish to write to Paul Burstow, or their local MP, to emphasise the vital role of the ring-fenced ASG. NAT’s letter to the minister can be used by people and organisations to make the point that the ring-fence is still needed.
 

Any letters to the minister should reflect the local situation. You might emphasise these points:

• The important role ASG funding currently plays in funding local services
• The impact the loss of the ring fence would have on funding for HIV orgnaisations (it is far less likely that local authorities will continue to fund services without the ring fence - what would happen to people if support is no longer available?)
• Some case studies showing the difference the Grant makes to the lives of individuals and families in your area

NAT 2009 report on The AIDS Support Grant – Making a Difference?

 
Latest Department of Health details on ASG allocations for each council in England and how it should be spent  
 

NW England
AIDS Support Grant 2009-2010 and total HIV population by social services district
download our handy guide for NW England here

The AIDS Support Grant allocations for the current year, April 2010 – March 2011, have not been published – it should be listed as a circular here

Here is gathered information from Freedom of Information requests on AIDS Support Grant in different parts of England 

text of NAT letter to Minister
image