EXPERT BLASTS APPALLING WAITING TIMES AT SEXUAL HEALTH CLINICS 

A consultant in genitourinary medicine at the Countess of Chester Hospital has added his voice to the call for better sex education and more funding for sexual health clinics to combat soaring rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Dr Colm O'Mahony echoed the views of British Medical Association chairman James Johnson by saying it was "appalling" that the service offered to patients at sexual health clinics in the UK today is worse than it was 90 years ago.

During the First World War a free, rapid and totally confidential service was set up to treat STIs in so-called VD clinics, but nearly a century later patients can wait up to six weeks for an appointment in a seriously overstretched service.

Because the symptoms associated with infections, such as chlamydia, often clear within six weeks, patients opt not to seek treatment and therefore carry on infecting partners.

Dr O'Mahony, former chairman of the Association for Genito-Urinary Medicine, is due to speak about STIs at a major three-day conference for rural doctors and other healthcare professionals in Mid Wales next month. His topic, "Sexual tourism - the rise of both old and new plagues", is included in an afternoon session on the perils of foreign travel on the first day of the conference.

The 15th Annual Rural Doctors Conference, which attracts delegates and speakers from across the UK , is organised by Montgomeryshire Medical Society (MMS) at Gregynog, near Newtown from September 29 to October 1, with support from the Institute of Rural Health (IRH). The event coincides with Rural Health Week from September 27 to October 1.

"We have to stop new infections happening and the only way do that is to improve education in schools," said Dr O'Mahony. "All countries that have good sex education have lower incidence of chlamydia and teenage pregnancy, which shows it works.

"We also have to set up a decent service to treat infections as quickly as possible. By allowing people to go untreated, you increase the prevalence of infection in the community.

"HIV is a classic example of that. One third of people infected with HIV have never had a test. Patients with HIV that are diagnosed very early, before their immune system is permanently damaged, can now have a normal lifespan provided they take prescribed drugs for the rest of their lives."

During his conference address, Dr O'Mahony will focus on the dangers of people returning with STIs from holidays abroad.

"Young people today never had the experience of the AIDS and HIV information campaigns that we lived through in the '80s," he said. "Because the education system still refuses to embrace relationships and sexual education, many young people have no idea about sexually transmitted infections.

"Even sensible young men go off in gangs on holiday to places like Bangkok with a supply of condoms which they use for the first few times and then stop using them. Infections acquired abroad are much more difficult to treat because they are more resistant to drugs and there is also a big danger of getting infected with HIV, even in heterosexual relationships.

"You can buy antibiotics over the counter in some countries and people have been treating themselves for everything with the latest drugs, with the result that most clinics in the UK have experienced high levels of resistant infections.

"When people return to this country and notice the first signs of an infection, they phone up a clinic to get an appointment and have to wait up to six week.  Young people with chlamydia won't bother waiting six weeks, by which time the symptoms may have cleared, and they will continue to pass on the infection.

"Studies have shown that at least one in 10 young people in England between the ages of 16 and 21 are carrying chlamydia, which can cause infertility, ectopic pregnancy and chronic pelvic pain.

All parts of the UK are also seeing a steady increase in new HIV infection, particularly in heterosexual people."

More information about the conference, which is open to GPs and other health care professionals, is available from Ann Whale, MMS co-ordinator, on 01686 650800 or annw@rural-health.ac.uk.