I treat all my Satients as HI9 Sositive ± 'entist Musa Mthethwa

– Wellknown dentist Doctor Musa Mthethwa has revealed that he treats all his dental patients as HIV positive.

MBABANE

Asked to comment on the new government policy requiring dental patients to be screened for HIV/AIDS before being cleared for treatment, Mthethwa said this was long overdue in public hospitals. “It is just that people do not notice things but when you come to my clinic for treatment, there is a form that you are required to fill. The problem is that this is not something that we put out in the open or promote but HIV status is part of those forms. For many years, we have always done that for any patient coming into my clinic,” Mthethwa said.

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The doctor emphasised that at his hospital, filling in of the forms is a requirement, whereby the patients declare their statuses for HIV/AIDS along with other diseases like TB and COVID-19. “The HIV part is very crucial because knowing the status of the patient becomes critical when treating him or her. When you are providing dental treatment for an HIV positive person, you should always bear in mind that the recovery process for that patient will not be as quick as the one who is negative. So, you need to make precautionary measures to establish the form of medication to administer on that patient so that he or she can heal normally even if HIV positive,” Mthethwa, who is also part of the Eswatini Dental Association, said. Mthethwa added that even patients who are sugar diabetic are supposed to declare their statuses to get better treatment. “For my clinic, illnesses like COVID-19 are not a priority but we emphasis on patients declaring their HIV or TB statuses. What we do is ask the patients on these diseases and they are required to declare such in a form that they also sign as acknowledgment,” he said. He said the fact that it is only now that dental patients are required to screen for HIV/ AIDS and other diseases at public hospitals only meant that government has not been doing justice to their patients before.

“A person is holistical, it is not just about the painful tooth because teeth affect the entire body. We need to understand that teeth are not just on their own but they go with the entire body of a person. So, as a dentist, whatever you do, you should know that you are affecting the person’s life,” Mthethwa said. He also pointed out that as dentists, they cannot just administer an injection on the patient as they must first establish if that medication would be okay for that person. “You must know what the content of the medicine you will administer on the patient. We are aware that some people are very sceptical once you mention HIV testing, that is why the policy now is that we need to treat all patients as HIV positive because chances of that person being positive are always high,” he said.

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Mthethwa added that the sterilisation process for patients and infection control measures become very important. “As long as you treat all your patients as HIV positive, the treatment is guaranteed to be a success without any complications. History has taught us that patients are not open about their HIV statuses, only a very few are open about it. As for myself, I don’t know if I am HIV positive and the truth is that I do not want to know because such things are personal,” he said. Mthethwa said for people to undertake

HIV testing, they need counselling, which he said, was not an easy thing. “The HIV testing subject is a sticky one yet when a doctor knows a patient’s status, it makes the treatment even more efficient. Even the healing process for that patient who has declared his status becomes smooth.” Doctor Mthethwa emphasised that before treating a patient, he studies the form that person has filled in as it has sugar diabetics, TB, HIV and many others. “There are also heart diseases to consider because if for instance a patient has undergone surgery, then the treatment must accommodate that. I am a doctor and so I treat any person who comes to my clinic as positive because if I were to treat the person as negative, then I would not be doing my job right,” he said. Mthethwa said even if a person declares a negative status when coming to his clinic, he would still treat that person as positive. “For instance, if a dental patient has been treated for a heart condition, the doctor would normally give that person an aspirin, which helps the blood to flow properly without clotting because once it does that, you get a stroke.”