COLLEGE DRUG FEAR OVER AIDS CARE UNIT

Wesley College fears its students may be offered drugs if an entrance
to a palliative care unit for AIDS patients is located across the road
from its Prahran campus.

The school principal, Mr David Loader, said he was concerned that
visitors to the unit might be drug takers who might attempt to offer
drugs to students.

But advocacy groups have slammed the school's stance and criticised
the principal over his remarks.

The groups said visitors to the continuing care unit would most likely
be the mothers, fathers, priests and pastoral carers of the dying
patients, many of them parents themselves.

Mr Loader said he had no objection to the unit, which will be operated
by the Alfred Hospital, and had offered for some students to do
supervised care work there. But he did not want one of its entrances
to be located on Moubray Street, across the road from one of the
school's busiest entrances.

"Some of the visitors to the people in that unit may well still be
current drug users and some, maybe one, might be interested in
extending a business; and maybe it's possible that one of our students
might be interested, and I just don't want that to happen," Mr Loader
said.

But Ms Philomena Horsley, coordinator of Positive Women Victoria - an
advocacy and support group for HIV-positive women - described Mr
Loader's comments as offensive.

She said less than 5 per cent of HIV-positive Australians had
contracted the virus by sharing syringes, and that 80 per cent with
HIV/AIDS were men who contracted the virus through homosexual or
bisexual sex.

Ms Horsley said the entrance Mr Loader was objecting to was not the
main doorway and would lead to the offices of Positive Women and other
community groups.

An Alfred Hospital spokeswoman said the unit was due to be completed
by the end of the year. The main entrance will run off a new road that
will stretch between Baker Lane and Moubray Street.