Heartache of the Aids whistle-blower forced to live in exile

Over the past six months, 82-year-old Dr Gao Yaojie has often woken up in tears, only to find herself in a cosy Texas bedroom.

In her dreams, she can reach home by crossing a river. But when she wakes up, she is separated from her Henan home by an ocean and the central government's suppression of her campaign to speak up for mainland Aids patients.

Gao, the mainland's most high-profile HIV/Aids whistle-blower, said she was forced into exile in August in order to carry on documenting the plight of mainland Aids patients and the scandal of disease transmission through blood sales and transfusions. She faced constant harassment from the authorities for insisting that blood remained the most important means of transmission on the mainland, not sexual contact as claimed by the government.

Gao is now living with a Chinese family in an undisclosed location in Texas. But the more care they show to her, the more heartbroken she is as it reminds her that her only son has blamed her for causing trouble for the family.

'I feel secure and comfortable here, but my son did not treat me that way,' she tells RTHK in a documentary that will be broadcast tomorrow. 'I travelled to the US alone as I was homeless in my country. All my children have their own families ... none of them supports me.'

Every day, the small, frail doctor is taken to a study provided by a nearby church so that she can write. It is quiet, clean and safe compared to her home, where she was constantly under surveillance.