HIV Educational tips.

What are HIV & AIDS?

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, and AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

The individuals first contract HIV infection to become AIDS patients. The AIDS condition is when HIV is developed into the full-blown stage with a combination of multiple medical conditions.

So, the person living with HIV is not an AIDS person. He can be an HIV carrier, live with the virus for many and has the potential to spread the infection to uninfected persons.

HIV educational tips.

Having sex without a condom.

If you want to have sexual intercourse outside your marriage, or faithfully partner - always use a condom.

Having sex without the use of a condom you can contract HIV/STI (Sexual Transmitted Infections), unwanted pregnancies (female). In Papua New Guinea, the major mode of HIV transmission is through vaginal sexual intercourse, and this is not the same in many parts of the world.

What transport HIV infection?

Four major vehicles transport HIV from an infected person to an uninfected person. They are infected semen, vaginal fluids, blood and breast milk. 

The infected semen and vaginal fluids have a high chance of transmitting the HIV infection. The blood that comes in contact with an open wound can easily absorb through the soft tissue membrane. Breast milk has a high chance if there is no medical care for pregnant mothers. Currently, all health facilities have medical treatments and support services available for pregnant mothers who want to have babies without HIV, and it's one hundred per cent safe. Many health facilities in Papua New Guinea and around the world are delivering babies without HIV.

So, talk to your doctor or healthcare provider who can support pregnant mothers to have healthy babies.

Multiple sexual partners.

Staying true to one sexual partner stops the transmission of HIV/STI. However, having multiple sexual relationships has a high chance of contracting HIV/STI. 

Condom - the best prevention method.

If you have multiple sexual partners, use a condom. The condom remains the best prevention method and without the use of a condom during sex, you are at a greater risk of HIV/STI.

Getting HIV test.

The key to freeing your mental health stress is getting tested for HIV. Only the test will tell whether you are HIV positive or negative. You can not tell a person by looking at him or her having HIV, no!

Talk to your doctor or healthcare workers where to get tested.

Get treated for STI.

The STI increases the high risk of contracting HIV. One thing to remember is HIV is one of the STIs. The STI spread the same way HIV is transmitted through sexual contact. So, if you have an STI you might as well have HIV. 

Antiretroviral (ART) support.

If you have HIV, you can not vomit it or abort it. What you need to do is talk to your doctor or healthcare provider about how to get ART. The ART can not cure HIV, but it can suppress the virus load in your body so that you stay fas it and healthy as other none infected people.

HIV spread stops with you.

Love life. If you are an infected person respect another person, and engage in protective sex, if you are none infected person, avoid HIV through the use of a condom. The spread of HIV stops in your love for life.

Fly-In-Fly-Out (FIFO) worker’s wives’ workload stress

 Introduction:

Characteristically, FIFO work involves a roster system in which employees spend a certain number of days’ away working on-site, after which they return to their families for a set number of days (Storey, 2010). Workers are therefore away from their local communities and families for set periods on a regular, rostered basis.

Current research literature has increasingly identified the damaging impacts of FIFO work arrangements on parenting, families, and individuals. This is often recounted in the research literature as ‘parenting stress’, ‘conflict’, and ‘relationship stresses. Whether or not these negative consequences of FIFO work arrangements on families are indicative of the existence of higher rates of family and domestic violence in FIFO worker populations is unknown (Govt. of Western Australia –Dpt. for child protection & family support-2013).

In the absence of a father, the mothers perform one of the most difficult mother-father’s tasks, starting early as 5 am and clocking off late in the night just to ensure the house is in order. The mothers are emotionally, physically and mentally over-stress, and require support from their husbands/partners.  

 The FIFO Workers are not aware of the enormous tasks mothers perform on daily basis. The mothers do not speak up just to prevent them from being kicked out of the house, violent relationship, or protect social and cultural values. The FIFO Workers’ wives are living in hell on earth.

•  Rationality.

Conflicting expectations of FIFO parents (eg. parenting/ household tasks, finances) lead to greater vulnerability to feelings of isolation or depression (2013).

 The essence of this paper is to uncover the FIFO Workers’ wives’ workload, emotional and psychological stress, physical gaps and financial needs while men are at the mine-site.

 The FIFO Workers wives are living in hell with overload in the effort to ensure their school kids, houses, animals, and visitors are supported. However, most of the men are not aware of the magnitude of the mother’s tasks due to a lack of education and awareness.

 The rationality of this paper is to educate the FIFO Workers on the tasks wives performed while they are away, so that they provide emotional, psychological and financial support, provide physical closeness and, relieve household tasks while on field break.

•  Target audience.

This study particularly looks at the Newcrest FIFO Mine Workers’, particularly male Workers.  Most of these workers are highly skilled labour force, drawing from various parts of Papua New Guinea and overseas, and they are work rooster schedule with fixed field break days.

• Objective(s).

Five HIV Prevention Strategies

The HIV remains one of the deadliest disease in the worldwide. There are many factors facilitating the spread of HIV infection, but one of the core rationale behind the spread of HIV is lack of education and awareness about how HIV infection spread from infected person to uninfected person.

When you are informed, you are likely to engage in informed decisions like employing prevention methods.

The followings five (A,B,C,D & E) HIV prevention strategies provides various alternatives for people to decide.

(1). A - Abstain from having sex.
Simply no sex! This is the best way to prevent one from getting infected with HIV, yet it remains one of the fail concept. In real-life situations, no one abstains from having sexual intercourse.

If the first strategy is not working for you, then you have the second option to choose and that is B.

B - stands for ‘be faithful to one sexual partner’. This is the most effective prevention strategy. You can have regular sex with your wife, husband, girlfriends or boyfriends.

If you are unable to manage the above two preventions strategies, then, you have the next option that is C.

C - Use of condoms.
The condom remains a super prevention method. There is no better prevention tool than a condom. There are two types of condoms, male and female condoms (Read to ‘how to use condom’ in this blog).

Whenever you feel like having sex outside your faithful partners, it is advisable to use a condom to stay protected. The condom can prevent sexually transmitted infections including HIV and unwanted pregnancies.

Some things your need to lookout on condom are:

•Check the condom's expiry date.
•Do not carry the condom in your trouser pockets as sitting and up position will remove the condom's lubricants which will perhaps break during the sexual intercourse.
•Store the condom in a cool, dry and safe place.
•Use one condom to one act of sex.

D - Delay engaging in sex.
The delay is like abstain from having sex. This strategy is suitable for youths. The young people should delay sex before marriage. This days, delay sex idea only works in few people but it’s a fail strategy for large population. Hence, the selection of above two strategies are better alternative.

E - Education is key to staying free from HIV. Getting educated about HIV and AIDS infections will help us make educated sexual choices. If you are not informed, alone the journey of your life, temptations are not far and lack of education means, you are at the risk of HIV infection. So, get educated to safe life. It is also important that when we are informed, we can also help those around us as well.

TAKE HOME POINT:
• Everything rise and falls at your feet. You take it or leave it, it's a game of a choice.

Three (3) tips on malaria prevention

Malaria is a fatal disease, at the same time preventable. The doctors or health professionals only attend to you when you're sick. The first thing to do is you're helping yourself before you're helped.

So, where there is no doctor, the first thing that comes to our mind is: How can we prevent getting infected with malaria parasites. Many times, we forget the basics or primary health concepts because we want to and enjoy the joy of modern technology. However, the primary health concepts remain the world's perfect health practices.

So, it's best described as preventive medicine they call it prevention is better than curing or proactive primary healthcare remains the world's best while reactive costs lots of money and life.

Following are primary healthcare preventive approaches on how to prevent malaria.

Three (3) tips on how to prevent malaria.

1. Clean up the surrounding bush areas. Ensuring the surroundings of your home should be completely cleared so that mosquitoes do not build their homes. The mosquitoes like to stay in dark places. Once the area is cleared up, and sufficient light is directed in the areas, it's not safe for mosquitoes to live in such areas.

2. Throw away empty tins, pots or any that containers that can store water. The mosquitoes like to still waters and most running water. The still waters is a potential breeding ground for mosquitoes.

So, the best thing to do is open both sides of the tins, and throw them into the rubbish bins, and drain out the still waters. 

The mosquitoes lay eggs and multiple in a still sitting water and once preventive healthcare practices are applied, mosquitoes feel insecure so they either leave or die out.

3. Sleep in properly treated mosquito nuts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and medical experts on malaria highly recommend sleeping under treated mosquito nets.

How to deal with problems respectfully.

The man was created and placed on earth not only to enjoy what the world offers but to manage, govern the earth and also solve many issues. In the journey of our lives, all humankind encounters many challenges in their lives. Some of these issues can push us to extremely in a stressful situations.

Lack of awareness about the problems can increase the stress level. Many times we want goodies in our lives but never enjoy going through those depressing moments.

No one is free of earthly troubles. All mankind has and will have their time to go through the painful period despite all the happiness gain in their lives. When those moments arrive, stand firm as all things happen at the fullness of time because your time has just arrived, so face it with a respectful heart and mind.

Why do problems occur in our lives?
We can’t run away or hide from it but confront it. To deal with the challenges, it is critical to recognize the problem to understand it with respect, and then accept what is before you so that you deal with it.

Once you have gone through the painstaking refinery process of accepting it, this process should refill you with some wisdom of walking through your time.

The old must go for a new beginning. The closing of the first door provides an opportunity to open the next door. Losing your job brings you sadness, but landing a new job brings you happiness.

It's like sitting for a high school examination. You feel the pain of going through the notes, understanding them, putting yourself to self-tests, then walking into the exam room with some clouds over your mind, and then walking through the waves of result waiting time. The passing of the exam and acceptance to enroll at the college is a different feeling. Isn't it!

Look at yourself, we are made up of good and bad things. Sometimes you hate bad things inside you and feel good about the qualities and achievements you have gained in life.

We go through the happy hours and enjoy those moments very much then the dark door opens, so, we walk through it with lots of headaches, that's the meaning of life we are living on this earth. No one will be crowned with the glory of happiness forever, that's not earthly life. So, we must accept problem humbly and deal with a right frame of mind and support from other people, families or professionals.

Why all these things are happening in our lives? It’s a natural process for all mankind to go through the tape of testing time to qualify the worth of living a life on earth.

Testimony of Christian women.

One Sunday morning at the church, a woman was testifying.

“I love problems because the problem in life is good”.

"Without problem, I am not a woman”.

“I become a strong woman when my life is tested by the flames of fire (problems)”.

Wow! I thought. I didn’t understand, what she was talking about. Now, I understand the good things behind her testimony.

Before opening the new page in life, your old must be refined through the meticulous cleaning process, like gold getting its purity from a high intensified process. The new page is always a high call so to be elevated, you must pass the test of your time.

Who are we to be dressed with the glory of this world on the cheapest golden plate? We must share the suffering of this world to be strong men and women. You feel confident because you are sharpened by the situations to deal with a bigger task.

You ask any successful people. What does it mean to be a successful person in life? They will speak in many forms, but the summary will be ‘pain and tears’.

The drawing of darkness is for the opening of a brand-new day. So, stay strong because a brand-new day is coming your way with its happiness and blessings

Three ways to look at the problems:

(1). Respect your ability.
Respecting your ability is the first important step in dealing with any issues. No one will stand in for you, it’s you who stand tall in your problem. All the problems that happen in our lives will be within our abilities, and it won't be beyond our means.

Surely, you will have a conquering spirit when you respect yourself and find some steel during those stormy days.

Those who stood firm during those turbulent hours become dependable rock. We must appreciate that we are survivors of life. So, first, respect yourselves then the problem before you so that you have the solid ground to overcome negative waves.

Do not run away from the problem or sleep on it. First, leave the problems there so that you can bring yourself back.

Do some self-care stuffs like take time out to relax and sit back; do some deep breathing exercise; maybe walk down the road with your dog; find activities that you feel good about it, or engage in self-reflection. Go stand before the minor and speak to yourself that you can, yes, you can WIN.

(2). Respecting the problem and borrowing time.
Do not run away from the problems, but appreciate that it’s your time to walk through the darkness. Always be patient, and take time to see it through with the eagle eyes and minds. It’s highly important to respect the issues before you, and also give the trouble time so that it has a breathing space.

We all have experienced many crises in our lives in different forms and sizes. This is your time, so treat it with care. Remember, you are not alone.

When the light in the house is switched off, then, the power men are on the line is fixing the issues, so you need to stay relaxed because the issues of restoring power is beyond your control. The only thing you need to do is borrow the time so that power returns.

(3). Seek professional's help.
If you can’t help yourself see through the problems, seek support from friends or professionals like psychotherapists, psychologists.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

• The reason for darkness is for a new day, so stay strong through the storm.