Cross-cultural communication (7)
7)HIV Outpatient Clinic at Osaka National Hospital
I think this was in the mid-1980s. It was around the time that it was discovered that AIDS was caused by a virus, and testing methods had been established. Suddenly, Saudi Arabia announced that, as a condition for issuing visas, they would require proof of a negative AIDS virus (now HIV) test. The people who panicked were Japanese businessmen who needed to travel back and forth between Japan and Saudi Arabia. At the time, there were only a few facilities in Tokyo where it was possible to get an HIV test, and the only other place was our Osaka National Hospital. As the waiting list for tests in Tokyo was getting longer, inquiries flooded in to Osaka National asking if anything could be done about it. So, we decided to start testing, including requests from Tokyo, and set up an HIV outpatient clinic to handle the inquiries, and I ended up being put in charge of it.
From then on, we continued to hold the HIV outpatient clinic twice a week for several months until the Saudis withdrew their offer, and we tested about 100 people. Fortunately, none of them tested positive. From a certain point on, people began to hear rumors, and gay men from the Kansai area also started to come to the hospital to get tested. I had known a few gay men in New York, so I was able to interact with them without any problem. According to the information I received from them, prejudice against homosexuality was still strong in Japan, and if you included the number of gay men who were in the closet, the number of homosexuals was quite large.
Both the Japanese businessman and myself felt at the time that requiring an HIV test for visa issuance, even if only temporarily, was an arrogant and self-righteous national policy.
At the time, we had no way of knowing that I would be sent to Saudi Arabia myself a few years later.
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