Thanks for Pride Generosity

posted: 25/11/2009

George House Trust are extremely grateful to Manchester Pride who have given £33,750 to support our work for people living with HIV. All of this has gone straight into the Welfare Fund.

It was the generosity of everyone who bought tickets for the weekend, put money in tins and buckets, and supported Manchester Pride in dozens of other ways, that made possible this donation to help people living with HIV. Thank you.

This donation to George House Trust is one quarter of the fantastic £135,000 total raised for charity at Manchester Pride 2009.

£135,000 is the largest amount ever raised in the festival’s 19 year history. The money is used to support various lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups and projects across Greater Manchester through the Manchester Pride Community Fund and the Manchester Pride HIV / AIDS Fund. It funds the Lesbian & Gay Foundation’s ‘Free Condom and Lube’ scheme, as well as the George House Trust HIV Welfare Fund.

Welfare Fund

The George House Trust Welfare Fund supports people living with HIV pay for the very basics of day to day living, for example food and electricity. We also help with fuel bills and pay for essential items like cookers, washers and fridges.

In 2008/09 we supported almost 700 people from this fund.

Manchester Pride helps us maintain this important Welfare Fund service - it is highly appreciated as a life-saver through reducing real hardship for people living with HIV across North West England. Every penny is given out to people with HIV - there is no deduction from it for our administrative expenses.

You too, generous donors

Manchester Pride’s continued support is welcomed and we are so grateful to everyone who helped in any way by buying a ticket, or making a donation in the tins or buckets.

You can view our photosets from Pride 09 at Flickr

You can give Manchester Pride feedback on this years event and help shape Manchester Pride for 2010. They offer a pair of tickets in a draw for those who take part.

Gay Blood Donor Ban Plans

posted: 03/11/2009

The longstanding ban on gay men giving blood, for fear that HIV might get into the country's blood supply, was debated last week as part of a national consultation.

The meeting, held by the Independent Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs, is part of the latest review of the long list of people banned from giving blood for life.

Gay men and other men who have ever had sex with another man, people who have injected drugs, prostitutes and those who have ever had syphilis, hepatitis B or hepatitis C are all banned for life. Others are banned for a shorter time, such as people who have visited some countries, or had sex with someone from some countries.

Suggestions

One suggestion for a new policy for gay men and blood donations was to allow donations from gay men who have not had sex with another man in the last five years, banning only those who have had anal sex rather than oral sex, and lifting the ban on women who have had sex with a gay or bisexual man.

The meeting began with talks from some experts. Dr Richard Tedder, a microbiologist from University College London, argued that viruses were "not politically correct" and pointed to windows of time before HIV could be detected in blood samples. He also cited issues with testing blood donations for HIV, saying that not all of the blood in one donation can be tested.

Professor Deirdre Kelly, a liver specialist from Birmingham Children's Hospital, spoke of the need for people to donate blood and said she was not satisfied that certain deferral and exclusion policies were consistent with estimated risk.

The audience also heard from a heart transplant patient who argued that lifting the lifetime ban on gay men would "de-demonise HIV and AIDS" and would create a larger pool of blood donors. The meeting was then opened up to the audience to have their say.

HIV organisations views
Yusef Azad, from the National AIDS Trust, said he believed population-based deterrents were justified but added: "If you look at five-year deferrals [for gay men] with fourth-generation HIV testing, there is no significant risk."
Nick Partridge, the chief executive of Terrence Higgins Trust, said research has found that the vast majority – 93 per cent – of gay men have complied with the current ban on donating blood. But he added: "I'm struggling to calculate how many gay men haven't had sex in five, ten years. What realistic difference would it make?" Dr Tedder said he did not think gay men who hadn't had sex for five years would make a significant difference to safety.

Professor Kelly raised the issue of heterosexual men who may have once had a gay experience and said it was problematic that they, and their wives and girlfriends, were barred from donating blood.

Deborah Jack, of NAT, asked whether men who have only had oral sex with another man posed a significant risk.

Demonstrators’ question time
A group of around 40 students, along with Peter Tatchell, had been protesting against the ban outside the conference venue in Greycoat Street. Several attended the meeting along with National Union of Students LGBT officer Daf Adley. Adley suggested that the blood service was missing out on donations from thousands of healthy men and also argued that including protected oral sex as a reason for banning some gay men sent out the wrong message, as young gay men were being informed that protected oral sex was safe. He called for gay men to be screened for blood donation according to their individual behaviour, rather than basing specifications on whole groups.
However, a number of experts present refuted this, saying the lengthy questioning procedure this would involve was simply not practical.

Matthew Beaver, a local councillor, introduced himself to the audience as a gay man and suggested that those in the closet posed a far greater risk to public safety than men who were openly and confidently gay. This was dismissed by Nick Partridge, who said he doubted this was happening.

Stonewall previously supported the lifetime ban on gay men but recently changed its position. Terrence Higgins Trust maintains the lifetime ban is necessary. Stonewall spokesman Derek Munn said: "It is difficult for us to have different views from Terrence Higgins Trust but we reached our current position from the input of our members. "To have men who have sex with men as a single undefinable category is like using a blunt instrument."

The last review, in January 2007, recommended that the policy of banning gay and bisexual men from donating blood should be continued. A study commissioned by the Health Protection Agency is currently underway to find out more about compliance with rules. It will be published next year. A Department of Health spokesman said that the findings from the current review will be announced in 2010.

Source
 

Arras People Donation

posted: 27/05/2009

Arras People, a national project management recruitment agency based in Heywood, (between Rochdale and Bury, north of Manchester), has made a £500 donation to support our services. Dan Strayer and Nicola Thorp of Arras People toured our Ardwick offices, meeting volunteers and staff, and presented Jim Vann, George House Trust’s chair, with a cheque during their visit on 20 May.

The donation came after Arras People had conducted a series of Project Management Careers Clinics for nearly a year. Arras People asked for charitable donations for this valuable service. The total sum of the donations made for each clinic were rounded up by Arras to support four different charities based around the Greater Manchester area, including George House Trust.

Nicola Thorp, a consultant with Arras People, commented,
‘I feel pleased to be donating to a worthwhile charity which is tackling an issue that often gets overlooked. I didn’t realise George House Trust do as much as they do, and I think most people wouldn’t be aware, for instance, of the support services provided by George House Trust. I can speak for Arras People when I say that we’re honoured to contribute in whatever positive manner we are capable of doing.’

Jim Vann, chair of George House Trust, said of Arras People’s visit,
‘The opportunity to talk to the forward thinking staff at Arras People about our services is a fantastic way to connect up the voluntary and the private sectors. We’re hugely grateful to Arras People for their donation of £500 to support our work.’
 

Review for Blood Donor Ban

posted: 13/02/2009

A health minister has said that an expert advisory body is reviewing the ban on men who have had sex with men from donating blood. The ban, intended to keep HIV and other blood-borne viruses like hepatitis out of the national blood supply, is coming under growing pressure.

Minister Dawn Primarolo was answering a Parliamentary question from Ashok Kumar, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. He asked if the Department for Health plans to allow gay men to donate blood.

Ms Primarolo, the Minister of State for Public Health, said: "Current policy excludes men who have ever had sex with men, whatever their sexual orientation, from blood donation. The United Kingdom adopts a highly precautionary approach to blood safety. The guiding principle is that if the best available evidence shows that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a course of action will improve the safety of the blood, this action should be taken."

Review underway this year

"The Department is committed to regularly reviewing this evidence, and has asked its expert advisory committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs to do this in 2009."

We also know that the department's expert advisory group on healthcare workers living with HIV and hepatitis is also carrying out a review. This follows Israel's recent decision to allow a surgeon living with HIV to continue working. The surgeon is on treatment and has an undetectable viral load in his blood, and the assessment is that there is no significant risk of transmission during surgery using clinical gloves.

The ban on gay men donating blood was in the national press again late last year when the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBS) was banned from advertising at some student unions.

The NBS insists it targets sexual behaviour and not sexual orientation, but in effect virgins are the only gay men whose blood will be accepted for donations. The pressure is on for the ban to be replaced with something that matches the real risks better.

What's this got to do with people living with HIV?

People living with HIV are affected too by the blanket blood donor ban. The blanket ban broadcasts to the public inaccurate messages about HIV transmission risks. It unhelpfully reinforces HIV stigma, shame and blame, as well as apparently institutionalising homophobia. The ban in its present form is hard to defend on scientific grounds - it is too sweeping.

Flaws in Blood Ban

The National Aids Trust commented "The test for HIV used by the blood service is not the most reliable test currently available. Furthermore, the only two options considered as an alternative to the current lifetime ban are no restrictions at all and a one year ban – but there are alternatives such as the New Zealand five-year ban. A lifetime ban becomes increasingly indefensible when, for example, there would be next to no one alive with undiagnosed HIV fifteen years after they were infected.

"The National Blood Service has said it is willingly to review the ban if there is any new evidence. But it should be doing more. Instead of an essentially passive approach it should be proactive in questioning this outdated policy and looking for an alternative to a blanket ban."

Blood Ban Defence

The NBS defended themselves saying: "While safer sex through the use of condoms, does reduce the transmission of infections, it cannot eliminate the risk altogether. The reason for this exclusion rests on specific sexual behaviour rather than the sexuality of the person wishing to donate. There is, therefore, no exclusion of gay men who have never had sex with a man, nor of women who have sex with women. The policy would only be changed on the basis of clear evidence that patients would not be put at jeopardy. In addition, scientific advances in virus testing and inactivation are monitored."

Similar blanket bans have already been abolished in South Africa, Spain and Italy.

source