At the Jail, There’s Willi; She Counsels the Prostitute on Vulnerability to AIDS

As Orange County health officials grapple with the AIDS epidemic, they are making a special effort to let prostitutes know how vulnerable they are to contracting the deadly virus, especially those who share hypodermic needles.

In the course of that work, the name that invariably surfaces is Willi.

A public health nurse stationed at the Orange County Women’s Jail in Santa Ana, Willi, as she insists on being known, has counseled and tested about 1,200 prostitutes since the county began the AIDS testing in May, 1985. Of those, only 30 have tested positive for the AIDS virus. All but one shot up drugs.

“My biggest purpose is to educate them and get them to use the health department’s services once they are out,” she said at the jail. “I think they are trying to be more careful; a lot more condoms are being used now. When I ask them why they aren’t always using the condoms, they say, ‘Cause I forget when I’m high.’

“These are real people, but they aren’t in control,” added the spunky, 5-foot-3 grandmother, who has worked in the jail for eight years. “That’s the sad part.”

And, health officials say, that’s the danger.

Drug-using prostitutes not only risk contracting AIDS by sharing needles, but they may infect their customers through sex, although that is a lesser probability.

“Prostitutes are important as individuals who might lead us to understand how often . . . this disease spreads from heterosexual conduct,” said Dr. Thomas Prendergast, chief of the county Health Care Agency’s disease control unit. “It’s not common, but it occurs.”

Those who have watched Willi at work say she has a special rapport with the women and can get them to listen where others fail.

“Willi is the counselor, the nurse, the confidante of the girls,” said a colleague of Willi’s. “They trust her implicitly.”

Some prostitutes are afraid of having the Hiv (human immuno deficiency virus) test done, according to Willi. “Some say they don’t care, that they’re going to die anyway,” she said. “But once you explain it to them, very few refuse.”

Given her patients, the hours that Willi puts in at the jail are not always predictable.

Last week, for example, when police were arresting prostitutes in Stanton, she was called at 3 a.m. to offer the AIDS antibody test to the 20 women as they were booked. Because prostitutes often are cited and released, Willi said she must “get to them in (custody) or they’re gone.”

“I feel what I do here might help someone,” she said, adding “you’re not gonna lick the world, but you can make it better.”