Immigration leads to rise in sexual diseases

AN influx of workers into the island could be responsible for the recent massive increase in sexually transmitted diseases. The sexual health clinic in St Martin's has seen a 544% rise in new clients.

'It is fair to say that when you bring in new workforces, there's a potential spread of infection from areas where it is more frequent and from eastern European countries,' said the clinic's leading specialist, Dr Nick King.

'But I wouldn't target one group.'

Family Planning Service manager Sue Le Page shares that view.

'Whenever you get men on the move, disease follows them,' she said.

And she thinks screening people coming into the island would be one way to stem the increase.

But Dr King does not think this is an effective way to control the problem.

'It has been shown not to work as an immigration policy. The person could be incubating disease at the time of the test and there are human rights issues.'

But he thinks that screening would work as part of the employment process.

'Agents might be looking at those sorts of things.'

But the clinic has not seen a huge number of non-locals.

'People come to the clinic from all walks of life. The biggest proportion is young and local.'

Another contributory factor is international travel.

'People take two to three holidays abroad because we're an island and because we're wealthy. In the past, when people went on holiday, they had sex with their own, but now it would be with anyone. The spread of disease is a huge problem.'

He advocated education, immediate treatment and getting in touch with those who had had sexual contact with his patients.

'If you just treat the patient, it's just firefighting. There are usually at least three people involved. Contact tracing is very important.'

As for education, staff go into schools to talk to youngsters.

'My staff do that in their own time,' said the doctor, who has only 15 hours a week to see all his patients. So although the clinic aims to treat people within 48 hours, that is not always possible.

He would like to see further funding of his service to cope with the huge increase in patients.

'In Weymouth, which is very similar to us in numbers, they have three full-time specialist consultants, four nurse-practitioners, four nurses ' the list goes on.'

The Guernsey clinic is free, but, according to Health and Social Services minister Peter Roffey, a way of raising more funds could be to extend the '12 grant towards doctors' fees in exchange for a part-payment by the patients. Currently, the clinic receives a grant from Health to run as a separate service.

Although administered by a surgery, it is totally independent and Dr King wants it to remain so, with no fee payable.

He argued that, unlike a GP, the service does not pass on the patient to a specialist, but provides a complete package.

'It's a secondary-care service, as on the mainland. We are not a one-stop service ' we diagnose and treat. This is secondary care.

'Patients are often referred to me from GPs. We are designed to meet people's needs immediately to reduce the spread of infection.'

He is disappointed at the Health Department's reaction to his request for more funding.

'We have to speak out to see changes are brought about and other politicians have to take responsibility.

He fears his patients will be 'marginalised' and 'disenfranchised' if they are made to pay for his services.

'I'm not prepared to work under that system.'

But Mrs Le Page does not agree.

'I would not side with Dr King because the Health Department has been doing a lot of work on this. We pay for everything else, so why not sexual health?'