During the first days of August 2002 we received a phone informing us that a young person, called Binh, was interned in the Thanh Linh (Binh Thuan province) hospital and wanted to meet his family. It was a surprise to us and immediately contacted his mother. The mother told us that the police had arrested him for possessing drugs, about 7 months ago, and had sent him to a jail in Binh Thuan province. She didn't go to meet him there because she was afraid of the police. We knew that unless somebody goes there Binh would not be given almost food and thus he could die, so we requested his mother to go to meet him.

Binh was a HIV patient and became a volunteer in our group to convince drug addicts to stop the use of drugs. He used to attend our study groups and seminars and became a very active collaborator. At home he could not get along with his stepfather and spent much of his life on the streets. He also used drugs although he was not a heavy drug addict. The police knew him because he stole sometimes.

We decided to go to Thanh Linh and looked for Binh in the public hospital. He was placed in a small hut and after getting the permission of the prisons' committee we could meet him in a ward where squalid patients were. Binh was lying in bed on a worn-out mat so weak and thin that he looked totally different. He asked us to bring him home out of that place. His legs were as thin as his bones and he was not able to grasp things with his hands. He could not recognize anybody at the beginning.

We promised him to bring him home and gave some money to the guards asking them to make the arrangements to let Binh leave the prison and go back to his mother.

I hired a car and went to the province to pick Binh and bring him back to HCM. His father and one of our staff accompanied me. They finally released Binh at 6:30 in the evening, but since he had not yet finished his sentence they appointed a policeman to watch on him. He was a kind person.

We arrived at a public hospital at around 10:30 at night and Binh was brought to the emergency room. As soon as the diagnosis of AIDS was clear the medical staff became reluctant to intern him there and by midnight the doctor ordered him to look for another hospital. Binh was left alone outside in the stretcher without any assistance.

His father had left to inform the mother that Binh was in the hospital, but since nobody appeared to take care of him, we sent a person to convince the mother that her son needed urgent care. Finally, the mother appeared at 9:00 in the morning and when they left in the car of the hospital, the staff said: "we don't need this dirty stretcher any more". That was really more than we could bear. "What are hospitals for?

From there we went to the tropical hospital that has an AIDS department and convinced them to treat Binh. They diagnosed lung trouble and introduced him to a different hospital. He was afraid to be sent to jail, but we told him that he was in HCM.

The policeman, explaining that Binh was still a prisoner, handcuffed him at night and let him free in bed during daytime. The handcuffs were visible hanging from bed. How could a sick person like that escape?

Binh's parents live in the second floor of an old apartment. There is only one narrow room 2mt wide. The family was not in a position to welcome him. Besides, Binh and his stepfather did not go along well and the family was afraid of the spread of AIDS.

While in prison Binh was always hungry and coming home he liked to eat a lot, but after a few days he refused to eat and even to drink medicine. He would not say why.

Although he used drugs for a while, he stopped afraid of getting AIDS. During his stay in the hospital of the province he mentioned many times that he wanted to die.

We visited him dayly and often asked the advice of a volunteer doctor. Since it was not good for him to remain in that narrow house, we often brought him to our office for almost half a day and invited many of his friends to visit him. Nevertheless, Binh was not happy to have people watching him in such a pitiful situation.

At that time, his parents asked us to look for a place that will accept Binh. We also realized the need to do that and started to search for an institution, but there are few places that will accept him in this big HCM City. No hospital, no temple, no church could do it. In the meantime, Binh remained rolling up in a corner of the room. The possibilities of recovering were null.

Then, one day his father called us, "we are going to move to a new house and we found a place that will accept Binh. Please, come and help us to bring him there". We brought Binh to the place his father indicated us in order to help him to transport him to the institution, but the parents never showed up. They left him with us.

Binh's health deteriorated further and we decided to intern him in the Tropical Hospital. Although we informed the parents they did not come to see their son. He fell into coma and died early morning.

We spent 2 months taking care of Binh as much as we could do it. He had been working as a volunteer with us for 4 years and we keep good remembrances of him, but his death was sad. There are many HIV patients like Binh in this big city of Ho Chi Minh and this sad experience forces us to renew our commitment to them.