Many African Actors Risk Contracting STDs, HIV – Popular Ghanian Actress Haillie Sumney

Many African Actors Risk Contracting STDs, HIV – Popular Ghanian Actress Haillie Sumney

Despite the fact that budding actress, Haillie Sumney, decided to
quit her nursing career at the Riverside Hospital, USA, for acting in
Africa, she seems not to have forgotten her background as a nurse.

During
a chat with Saturday Beats, the rising star stated that from talking to
her friends about sex-related issues, she had come to realise that a
lot of African entertainers have a high risk of contracting STDs and HIV
simply because they do not like to use condoms during sex.

“Many
African actors stand the risk of contracting Sexually Transmitted
Diseases and HIV; I say this because African people can be very
promiscuous and a lot of them do not believe in using condoms or using
protection. They feel like they are ‘supermen’, and that HIV is not
real.

“I have friends and I talk to them, especially my male
friends and a lot of them say that they do not use protection because
they do not like it and that is the only reason that they give. When you
mention HIV, a lot of them act as if it does not exist. So I would say
that a lot of them are susceptible to HIV and STDs.

“This is one
of the reasons why I want to have a section for health on my television
show; to educate the youth in a fun and laid back way. I also hope to
have seminars, rallies and school visitations, where I would talk about
these issues. It is a very big issue but we do not talk about it. We
will go to hospitals; there are a lot of people dying of HIV. There are a
lot of people that have HIV and do not even know that they are living
with the virus because they have not tested themselves.

“As for
me, I practise what I preach. My parents own a TV station in Ghana
called Mission Africa TV and I will anchor a show there called, Vibe
With Haillie, which is in the pipeline. It is a talk show that focuses
on health-related topics, as I have that background. I would be giving
health tips and discussing health issues as well as entertainment,” she
said.

Born to a Ghanaian mother and a French father, Sumney said
though she loved her time as a nurse, she offered the course to please
her parents.

“I offered to study nursing because of my parents.
They did not really see my vision as an actress and initially, they
wanted me to have a professional degree. I enjoyed nursing but it was
not my true passion and when I got back home, I decided to chase my
dream.

“I worked as a nurse for about two and a half years and I
enjoyed taking care of people because I have a good heart. I worked at
Riverside Hospital, which was not far from the university that I
attended. I enjoyed the job, to be honest, but I felt it was not really
my calling. I enjoyed it while it lasted,” she said.

While asked
to compare Nigerian and Ghanaian men, she simply said, “If I am going to
compare Ghanaian men with Nigerian men, it will depend on what I am
looking for. If I want ‘wahala’, headache and no rest of mind, then I
would choose a Nigerian man, however, if I want to be taken good care
of, I would choose a Nigerian man. Ghanaian men are very relaxed and
sometimes they could be lazy. So, it depends on what I am looking for.”

The
actress, who has been shuttling between the US, Ghana, and Nigeria,
also advised Africans desperate to leave their countries in search of
greener pastures abroad.

“I was not born with a silver spoon in my
mouth, though I lived abroad for a long time and that is the mentality
that most people have. When people hear that you are based abroad, they
think that you are rich but you should see the way people are struggling
abroad. For me to leave nursing and return to Africa; if it was so
good, then why would I have left?

“Even if you are making money,
it is spent on paying bills. The American system is all about paying
bills and that is why I tell people who want to relocate abroad that
they should just go to school and return to Africa because it is very
easy to make it here than there. I say that they have a ‘zombie’ system
whereby you would work like a robot and keep paying bills; to me, you
cannot excel that way,” she said.