SCHOOL OF SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT AND
TOURISM

Course :Occupational Safety and Health Management.

Module :Introduction to Health Economics.
Module Code :BCON1102.
Title :HIV /AIDS at the workplace.
Name of group members:

• Huzooree Yesun k.-100169

• Goolamally Naadir-100167

• Peerbocus Shaheen-100178

• Beejan Sonika -100167

Table of contents: Page

Introduction……………………………………………………….………….2

Mode of transmission………………………………………..………………..2

The SSRN hospital………………………………………..…………………..2

Impact of HIV/AIDS at the hospital……………….….……………………..3

The human capital approach……………………………………………..…...4

The HIV/AIDS program at the SSRN hospital……………………..………..5

Benefit of the HIV/AIDS program………………………………..…………6

Cost & benefit of HIV/AIDS program……………………………...………..7

Conclusion………………………………………………………...…………..8
Introduction

Mauritius having a population of around 1.3 millions has actually 13,000 people living with
HIV/AIDS. The first case of HIV/AIDS was discovered in 1987. Mauritius has actually a
prevalence rate of 2% and there are around 240 deaths each year. There is roughly an average
of 543 new infections yearly. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by
the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This condition progressively reduces the
effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic
infections and tumors.

A person can become infected with HIV by exchanging bodily fluids with an infected person.
Specifically, HIV infection can occur by:

• Having unprotected vaginal, anal or oral sex with an infected person;

• Sharing drug needles or other skin-piercing instruments (such as razor blades)
contaminated with HIV;
• Receiving a transfusion with HIV-contaminated blood;
• Transmitting the virus from mother to fetus/ infant during pregnancy, birth or nursing.

The most common places of transmission of HIV/AIDS at the workplace are Prisons,
Hospital and Laboratories. For our case study, we would like to elaborate on HIV/AIDS
among the workers at the Sir Seewoosagar Ramgoolam (SSRN) Hospital, which offer health
care services. The hospital a total of 2257 indoors and outdoors worker, from which there are
231 doctors, 800 maids and cleaners and 1226 are nursing staffs and health care assistants.
The SSRN Hospital has been chosen as the workers are in contact with people (patients)
conducting injections, operations, deliveries, etc on a daily basis.

Actually precautions such as, sterilization, using gloves, equipments, proper disposal of
sharps and autoclave are carried out in order to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS at the
SSRN Hospital. But these precautions do not suffice. HIV/AIDS has various impact at the
SSRN Hospital.
The impact of HIV/AIDS at the hospital can be measured by:

• Conducting HIV prevalence survey among all grades of employees. Apply findings to
known medical and health care, absenteeism, new recruitment and related costs.
• Assume that prevalence rates for the country apply to the Hospital and use a computer
model to estimate costs.
• Use commonly collected company data as indicators of trends affecting the Hospital.

The direct economic impact of HIV/AIDS at the SSRN Hospital

There are two major economic impact associated with HIV/AIDS. These are employee
absenteeism and cost at recruiting and training new workers. Below are some figures showing
the direct cost of HIV/AIDS per worker per year.

DIRECT COST OF HIV/AIDS PER WORKER PER YEAR

Reason for Cost Cost as %

of Total
Hiring and Training New 33
Workers

Lost Productivity 28

Absenteeism 28

Clinic and Physician Visits 10

Hospitalization 1

Total 100

The Human Capital approach

Human capital refers to the stock of competences, knowledge and personality attributes
embodied in the ability to perform labours so as to produce economic value. The attributes
gained by the workers are acquired through education, training and experience. It is an asset
to any institution specifically at the SSRN hospital the human capital of the latter is a vital
asset for the very proper functioning of the hospital itself and saving lives of people. There is
a huge need to implement HIV AIDS programme so as to preserve those human capitals at
the SSRN hospital. The erosion of human capital due to HIV and AIDS has not only personal
costs for those affected, but also significant social costs in terms of lost output due to
morbidity and the premature mortality of those who have been educated and trained at great
expense.

The HIV epidemic also reduces the capacity to maintain a flow of staff with needed skills
and training. let us consider one direct effect, if at SSRN hospital, they are losing staffs due to
HIV and AIDS, their capacity to meet demands is reduced which also includes to replace
their own staffs who became sick and died from HIV and to train the new employees who
will join the workforce whereby we can say that there will be an overall reduction in the
experience, skill and the performance of the workforce itself. Moreover we shouldn’t forget
that HIV is a slow killer and there will be a phase when HIV/AIDS related morbidity begins
where there will be sickness leaves and other absenteeism will increase and again the work
performance will declines due to employee illness which consequently will cause an overall
productivity to decrease and overall labour cost to increase. At the SSRN hospital, thousands
of patients are treated everyday and if there is a loss of human capital there due to HIV/AIDS
it will have severe consequences on the hospital itself, on an individual aspect, on a financial
aspect, as well as the society aspect therefore it is important that we introduce some
HIV/AIDS programme.

The HIV/AIDS Program at SSRN Hospital

The Hospital has to put more emphasizes on HIV/AIDS prevention rather than curing,
prevention of HIV/AIDS is the best way to deal with the spread of AIDS. There are many
ways in which people can help in HIV/AIDS prevention rather than wait for treatment.

The institution selected; the hospital can make a choice among the various programs taking
the benefits of its employees into consideration. The institution has to make a choice
according to its budget. Therefore the institution has to sacrifice the other program and put
maximum effort on program that will be efficient to both its workers and consumers. The
aspect of human capital has been taken into consideration in designing the program as at the
hospital, the most prone workers are the nursing staffs, health care assistants, maids and
cleaners. Though they have less skills, they contribute equally at the workplace. The main
components of the program will be, raising awareness and training is considered to be well
fitted in the institution. Both ways consists of educating, communicating and raising
awareness among the workers of the hospital. Sensitizing activities should be enclosed in
educating and informing employees about the risks and ways to minimize their exposure to
that so named disease. Emphasize communicates could be brought onto the cost an
HIV/AIDS infected patient have towards his/her families ,for instance income reduction due
to poor health. Likewise, any professional institution is considered to be a good spot for
raising awareness. Destigmatizing workers over HIV/AIDS is also important. Induction
programs, fresher trainings, safety and technical briefs are some of the best opportunity to
grab to indulge AIDS education to staffs. Language, format, gender and cultures, these are
some of the parameters that could be taken into account and adapted while delivering training
programs to a particular audience. For instance, considering the gender feature, separating
male and female employees can often result in a more open and productive discussions. The
employers will benefit from the method if carried out at the very beginning of the talk, and at
the end merging both male and female staff for a brainstorming session. Getting the word out
to the employees, their spouses and the surrounding community is a main objective of the
program.

The main benefits of the above program are to ensure that the employer is serious about
maintaining a fair, healthy, and safe workplace for all workers. Informed workers then have
the tools to protect themselves, educate their families, and provide leadership within the
community. It also increases productivity, reduce absenteeism, and save cost for hiring and
training new workers.

Figure showing the benefits of introducing HIV/AIDS program

Cost & Benefit of the HIV/AIDS program

The hospital accepts that HIV/AIDS is a reality that affects productivity and profitability; the
question becomes: what will it cost to have an HIV/AIDS prevention program in the
institution.

CBA is the technique used by the institution in identifying, quantifying, and valuing in a
common yardstick for all important cost which are direct and indirect and also the benefit to
the society. Program managers and policy makers need to balance the costs and benefits of
various interventions when planning and evaluating HIV prevention programs. Resources to
fund these programs are limited and must be used judiciously to maximize the number of
HIV infections averted. The taxonomy of CBA services designed to

• Enhance organizational infrastructure

• Enhance HIV prevention interventions
• Strengthen community capacity
• Strengthen community planning. It includes language and definitions, approaches and
mechanisms for delivering capacity-building services.
Table showing the type of cost that is needed for the cost benefit analysis

Therefore the net benefit of an HIV preventative program is the costs avoided and reduced
(the benefit) minus the costs of the itself. This analysis extended the usual definition to
include costs and benefits of treatment and care.

Conclusion

HIV/AIDS has been a disease that has killed primarily young adults and middle aged adults
during their peak productive years. Since some time, the International labour organization
(ILO) has tried to relate HIV to the workplace and now it’s one of the major factors that an
organization has to deal with. The disease when infecting someone at the workplace not only
affects him individually, but his productivity, his family, on a society aspect as well as on a
global economic aspect as we discussed earlier. It is therefore vital that we include some
programmes so as to counter attack the prevalence rate and to protect our work force at SSRN
hospital. Moreover the SSRN hospital delivers health care facilities for people, if we take just
an example of if a heart surgeon gets affected by HIV, the impacts followed, on the
workforce, the patients, as well as the loss of the human capital. The programmes that we
have proposed will surely help to preserve the human capital at the SSRN hospital.
References

1. How To Prevent HIV/AIDS? – Denver,

http://www.articlefeeder.com/Health_and_Fitness/How_To_Prevent_HIV_AIDS__-
_Denver.html

2. Workplace HIV programs at the workplace for managers, www.fhi.org .

3. New health minister to campaign AIDS treatment,

http://www.kaelo.co.za/news/new-health-minister-to-champion-aids-treatment.html

4. FHI/UNAIDS Best Practices in HIV/AIDS Prevention Collection,

http://www.fhi.org/en/HIVAIDS/pub/guide/bestpractices.htm

5. APDIME Toolkit: Resources for HIV/AIDS Program Managers,

http://www.synergyaids.com/apdime/index.htm