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AIDS means fewer cops for KZN - police union
Patrick Leeman. The Mercury, 5 August 2002. Reprinted courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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The South African Police Union, which has 11 000 members in KwaZulu-Natal, says service delivery to the public could be severely curtailed because of the current epidemic of HIV and AIDS in the province.
The Union has estimated that almost half its members (42 percent) who died in the province last year died of illnesses directly related to HIV and AIDS.
By 2004, 80 percent of all deaths in the ranks of the Union in the province could be AIDS-related, said the statement.
Already reeling from emotional and psychogical stress arising from crime situations, the SAPS has also lost members directly through violent crime in KwaZulu-Natal. The new revelations on HIV and AIDS are seen as a crippling blow to the morale of the police.
The Provincial Secretary of the Union, Richard Ngidi, said at the media launch of a three-year plan to combat the ravages of HIV and AIDS in the ranks of the SAPS in Durban on Monday, that the impact of the epidemic on the police service was already "huge" and the effect "endless."
The Union, which has the majority union membership among police officers in the province, is considering opening crisis centres where its members can obtain counselling.
Ngidi said the Union's records showed that more and more SAPS members were suffering from post-traumatic stress, often as a result of HIV and AIDS in the family.
"The problem is that they cannot break the silence because they don't know who they can talk to," said the Provincial Secretary.
"The time is ripe for SAPU to take the initiative and break the ice with the establishment of crisis centres, with the involvement of psychologists and psychiatrists to assist members." Ngidi said that, as a progressive union, it was "unthinkable" that the organisation could not offer these services to its members.
Counselling could be extended to the families if the resources allowed the union to do this, he added.
"If we do not act now service delivery to the community could be seriously affected," sais Ngidi.
He said for every 10 deaths among police force members, up to 80 family members were left without food on the table, school fees and other basic human needs. |
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