Oscar Motsumi... has been actively working towards promoting practices aimed at eliminating discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Approximately 30 representatives of Western Jamaica's hospitality industry have moved closer to a greater appreciation of the issues involving HIV/AIDS at the workplace, even as the country's Parliament draws nearer to passing the Occupational Safety and Health Act next year.

The representatives, who last Thursday participated in a forum which focused on leadership advocacy as a critical response to HIV/AIDS in the workplace, were exposed to the practical realities involved in reducing the stigma and consequently prevalence of the disease which has its greatest impact among Jamaicans aged 15-49 years.

According to statistics coming out of the meeting, approximately 1.5 per cent of Jamaica's population - 25,000 - are HIV positive. However, 60 per cent of them don't know it.

Thursday's forum which was hosted by the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo) and the fledgling Jamaica Business Council on HIV/AIDS, was just one in a series of talkshops aimed at promoting an awareness among senior hotel managers of the importance of a public policy to deal with HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

It was addressed by several local hoteliers including Horace Peterkin, general manager of Sandals Montego Bay, who has, over several years been actively working towards promoting practices aimed at eliminating discrimination against persons in the workplace living with the disease; as well as Oscar Motsumi, a Workplace Programme Specialist from Botswana, South Africa.

According to Motsumi, who spoke on the issue when he came to Jamaica last year, the HIV/AIDS policy that he was intrumental in developing at the Debswana Diamond and Valuing Company where he works as its HIV/AIDS Programme Coordinator in Gabarone, Botswana, netted huge rewards in terms of impact it had on curtailing the disease and its effects. He said the policy emphasised, among other things, a strict adherence to confidentiality.
Routine testing, whereby everyone who turned up for a regular check-up at the country's public health facilities was directed to be tested, also reaped huge rewards.

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