Alsu*
39 years old
Kazan city, the Republic of Tatarstan
Alsu has been living with HIV for 16 years. In this period, she overcame drug addiction and gave up doing sex work. Now Alsu is married and has a son. She does not work because of her health condition. However, she is being denied in getting a disability pension.
In hospitals, Alsu often faces disrespect of doctors and rejection of therapy. So, in 2013 she had to treat pancreatitis by her own with the help of three days of fasting because doctors were afraid of drawing a blood sample and failed to put a catheter into a vein.
The code of HIV-infection is still written on a face side of Alsu’s medical card and she keeps facing the stigma because of her HIV-status as well as ex-addiction.
*the name of the person was changed based on her request
