Write a Comment
4 Comments
From the perspective of the health care worker, the biggest barrier to engaging in these activities are resources, mainly money. With funding cuts increasing, and already here, it's becoming harder and harder to give quality, patient-centered care.
One of the more difficult things to manage in living with HIV is support, most clinics are not willing or even able to support clients in a group support. Of the existing groups that do exist many are splintered into various groups that may not address the need, one method is to obtain support in dealing with this issue.
home visits! Just a quick run through n transmission rates for those in treatment on anti retrovirals makes it clear if even 1/5 of those resistant to care would accept a Nurse practioner with an escort into their home twice a yr for checkup/labs/prescription even on a cost basis the savings would be huge. Has anyone ever tried offering these people visits form plain clothes medical staff? I imagine part of the reluctance for treatment is stigma and discovery. I think mit's high time we started applying some out of the box ideas and studying them. There is only so much improivemtn available with in the traditonal system and getting to near 100 percent a numbner which might end the epidemci in a generastion mys requore more effort and non traditional ideas
Thomas B. Bowie Jr.
We have to understand the history of HIV/AIDS medical and prevention funding first. Ryan White Title Funding, how a state qualified and what was needed to request funds an implement programs. How a city or group of geographically connected towns and cities obtained an implemented medical and prevention programs. From sometime in the 1980's to 2001 there was a road map being created and shared across the country that evoked grass roots cooperation to get the best bang for the buck and take care of as many citizens as possible. George W. Bush brought us Faith Based Initiatives which has taken apart the system that had been built with tax dollars, cooperation and tons of learning experiences. What the Faith Based Initiative brought was needless competition between groups for funding as new funds were used to teach churches how to do what civic, medical an academic institutions had learned to do together. Obviously that has not worked based on your findings over that last decade. Beginning in the spring of 2001 HIV Positive People were systematically taken out of the process by taking away HIV Positive People's voting ability on Ryan White Funding Councils across the country. We had built an army and George W. Bush and friends took it apart in the name of Faith Based Initiatives. Instead of finding ways of allowing a positive person admitted into the system a way of staying in the system if they moved from one geographical place to another. Each state having there own system instead of a national one kept people prisoner in what ever place they began services in. The process to become eligible for care changes from place to place. You have to move before you can find out if you qualify in your new address. Unless you are from Puerto Rico and the Air Bridge Project was able to help you. Making things uniform would have helped one positive person help another into services instead of having to be a genius to figure out what is available in this city or that town or that state. Every time a person makes a change they have to start at the beginning which usually meant having to explain to some person how, when and where you think you got infected. Dignity is a huge roadblock to accessing medical services. Universal Health Care would have solved that problem. People will enter care when care is offered with open arms. If you have to detail your sexually history to three or four people before you can see a doctor or a nurse every time there is a change in agencies or providers or the person moves. What kind system is that? I remember in my non profit days seeing how a simple meal without strings could produce the most informative conversations and people wanted to help bring the message to others, medical or preventative. Politics and Religion were the biggest roadblocks to getting things done and sorry to say in my option have declined even further. Unfortunately with the wonderful economic condition George W. Bush left us in there hasn't been funding to correct or improve the system instead there has been a three year fight to stop health care and do whatever it takes to make the strong survive and the weak to fend for themselves. Once there is an easy entry for the average person to health care the numbers of HIV Positive People entering care will increase. Easy to hide in a crowd. If everyone is going to the doctor once or twice a year then the sick will get attention, the well will learn more an over time the health of our country will improve.
May 15, 2012