County Renews 2 Contracts for AIDS Care
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday renewed contracts totaling $500,000 with the Visiting Nurse Service of Long Beach and a nursing agency in Los Angeles to provide home care to AIDS victims through June.
About 150 patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome are expected to be treated over the next six months by the Long Beach agency and the larger Visiting Nurses Assn. of Los Angeles, which has offices in Santa Monica, Redondo Beach, North Hollywood, Bell Gardens and central Los Angeles.
The two nonprofit agencies provide therapists, nurses and attendants up to 24 hours a day for patients near death. They also assign housekeepers and offer other types of assistance to patients for many months before they die.
Home nursing is part of a larger hospice program, approved by the supervisors in January, that attempts to treat AIDS patients in ways that are cheaper and more appropriate than hospitalization, according to county officials.
The nursing agencies’ home-care costs for AIDS victims are about $150 a day, compared to hospital expenses of about $750 a day, county officials said.
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