Japan: HIV carriers laud openly gay counselor at Osaka hospital

By YUSUKE OGAWA

OSAKA--Gaku Okamoto has faced his share of discrimination for being upfront about his sexual identity. When the openly gay medical social worker first started working in the profession, someone from the public greeted him with the jab, “Why would a hospital ever hire a guy like that?”

Okamoto, now 42, was undeterred by such insults. For the last 13 years at a medical center here, he has offered encouragement and mental health care to HIV carriers and AIDS patients, many of whom are gay. His courage to stand up for his identity has made Okamoto a much sought-after counselor at the National Hospital Organization Osaka National Hospital, where he now has counseled 2,000 individuals with HIV or AIDS.

Despite the fact that AIDS is no longer an epidemic and can now be treated and controlled with drugs, there appears to be no end in Japan to cases where hospitals refuse to examine people with HIV or employers cancel decisions to hire them for no explicable reason. Read more via Asahi