UKIP letter claims British people can’t get HIV treatment because of immigrants
The UK Independence Party has posted a letter from a British man, who claims he can’t get adequate treatment for HIV because of “immigrants”.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage has repeatedly claimed that “foreigners with HIV” are causing a funding crisis within the NHS – despite his statistics being denounced as misleading and inaccurate.
The party today shared a letter on social media from an unnamed British man, who claims he can no longer see a doctor for HIV treatment because of “immigrants”.
He claimed: “The waiting rooms are full with immigrant patients.
“Not only is this massively increasing cost it is burdening the small specialist system to the point of failure. Something must change and I support your comments fully.”
He continued: “I now have to wait 3 weeks to have a blood test appointment, before I see my doctor. “What does this mean for me and thousands of other HIV+ British people?
“The reality is I have 14 tablets left, I will run out of medication in 14 days, I must take a tablet each day to stay alive but I can’t get blood tests and I can’t get to see a doctor and I can’t get a prescription which should have resulted in an automatic delivery of my Atripla medication to my front door.”
The party said: “Today Nigel Farage received an extraordinarily moving email from a young man suffering from HIV. It talks about the difficulties that he and other British citizens with HIV have in receiving treatment.
“It is a simple fact that the sheer numbers of those coming from abroad to receive treatment, treatment free at the point of delivery, are putting strains on the NHS.”
As UKIP has redacted the names and details in the letter, PinkNews could not verify any of the claims, but HIV activists have voiced extreme scepticism at the claims.
The BBC’s statistics show More or Less recently looked into Mr Farage’s claims about HIV – and found his original stats were incorrectly interpreting figures, based on data many years out of date, and failing to take into account basic considerations like people contracting HIV while living in the UK.
His numbers also did not reflect the fact that treating people with HIV reduces transmission to British nationals – reducing the overall cost either way.
When asked which kinds of people should be allowed to enter the UK in October, Mr Farage said: “People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That’s a good start.”
