20 AIDS Patients on Program’s Waiting List : Health: Officials say the record number waiting for care in the county will grow unless more funds are found to help them.

A state-funded program that assists Ventura County’s AIDS patients has a waiting list of 20 people--the most ever--and officials say that number will grow unless additional funding can be obtained.

The AIDS Case Management Program has cared for 95 AIDS patients since its inception in 1988, doing everything from setting up home care for those who do not have insurance to helping people with AIDS navigate the maze of paperwork necessary to claim disability benefits, said case manager Roberta Pak-Young.

The program operates under an $80,000 state grant, Pak-Young said. She said the funding has been frozen at that amount this year despite a growing number of acquired immune deficiency syndrome cases.

“The number of AIDS cases I’m seeing are going up so fast that I can’t even get back to my phone calls as fast as I’d like,” Pak-Young, who is a registered nurse, said during a visit to an AIDS patient’s home in Camarillo last week.

The waiting list will continue to grow as long as the number of AIDS patients continues to increase without proportionate increases in the program’s budget, Pak-Young said.

There are 250 cases of AIDS in Ventura County, said Martina Rippey, a public health nurse who chairs the Ventura County AIDS Task Force. She said 172 county residents have died of the disease.

Rippey predicts that changes in defining full-blown AIDS planned by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control will only add to the caseload.

“The numbers will continue to grow, and the resources continue to shrink. It’s a really difficult situation right now,” she said.

Ken, a 33-year-old Camarillo man who recently marked his one-year anniversary in the AIDS Case Management Program, said Pak-Young’s work has allowed him “to concentrate on being well.”

“AIDS is a rocky trip. In all this insanity, it’s really been nice to have someone there as an anchor, and that’s what Roberta’s been for me,” he said.

Ken, formerly a loan officer for a Hollywood union, doesn’t have the gaunt, disheveled appearance associated with many AIDS patients--in fact, he looks healthy.

However, Pak-Young almost immediately asks him if he is not feeling well, and he tells her that he has been ill recently.

“When we’re talking, whether they know it or not, I’m checking out their condition,” Pak-Young says, casually greeting Ken’s mother as she walks through the living room.

Besides giving AIDS patients companionship, the home visits are opportunities for filling out the stacks of paperwork needed to keep disability payments and Medicare coverage intact.

“Roberta’s been really great with Medicare,” Ken said. “I’ll go over there and invariably see no one, and then I’ll go to Roberta and she’ll get it taken care of immediately.

“Unfortunately, this disease is one of isolation,” Ken said. “Roberta suggested that I get in touch with a buddy program. She’s helped make me feel less alone.”

The State Office of AIDS pays three-fourths of Pak-Young’s salary and the salary of a part-time administrative assistant through the $80,000 grant. The remainder goes toward providing home care to patients without medical insurance and other miscellaneous assistance such as food credits and transportation.

“It’s real tight right now. If we had more money we could get another part-time case manager, or we could increase home care. That actually would save the state money by helping these people not be hospitalized,” Pak-Young said.

The program is not the only Ventura County AIDS-related program experiencing financial difficulties.

The AIDS Education and Surveillance Program in Ventura County, run by Rippey, did not receive a budget increase for the 1991-92 fiscal year, and later suffered a reduction of 4.7% when the state budget was finalized in August, Rippey said.

The reduction has slashed the hours that she spends on AIDS education and case monitoring from 40 to 25 per week. She said she has cut back on educational seminars geared toward health professionals and safe-sex lectures at colleges.

Ventura County is not capable of making up for these cuts, Rippey said. “The AIDS epidemic is not waning, but everything--services and whatever--is being cut, while public apathy is on the increase.”

Reese Walsh, director of AIDS CARE, the only nonprofit organization in Ventura County dedicated to working with AIDS patients, said the funding cuts are a major concern.

“Those of us who work in AIDS-related health care know that there’s going to be a major increase in cases, and yet the decrease in funding has already started.

“It’s distressing that the politicians in Washington and Sacramento seem to have already let AIDS die as a hot political issue,” Walsh said.