Suit Filed Over Doctor’s Refusal to Treat Man With HIV

As sign-carrying AIDS activists picketed a Ventura medical clinic Friday, a man filed a federal lawsuit against the clinic and a physician who refused to treat a cut on his hand after learning he was HIV-positive.

About 30 protesters congregated outside the Ventura Urgent Care & Family Planning clinic where Dr. Thelma Reich turned away Salvador Fuentes last month after he informed her that he carried the AIDS virus.

Clinic officials said Reich resigned this week because she refused to comply with clinic policy to accept all patients, including those with AIDS, and apologized for the incident.

Fuentes, a 30-year-old Ventura resident, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles alleging that Reich, the clinic, and its owners violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act by not treating him.

On Feb. 14, Reich wrote Fuentes a note saying she was refusing treatment because he was HIV-positive. Fuentes’ lawyers said the note will show that her actions violated a provision of the act that classified people with AIDS as disabled.

Fuentes’ lawsuit is believed to be the first time the act was cited by an AIDS patient since it became law Jan. 26.

The act was designed to guarantee people with disabilities--including those who are HIV-positive or those with acquired immune deficiency syndrome--access to public places, including hospitals and dentists’ offices, said Sande Buhai Pond, Fuentes’ lawyer.

“The law states very clearly that you can not discriminate on the basis of a disability,” said Pond, who works out of the Western Law Center for the Handicapped at Loyola Law School.

“Being HIV-positive, or having AIDS, is clearly a disability, and there are a number of cases that say so very clearly,” Pond said.

Although Fuentes is challenging Reich in a civil lawsuit, medical and law enforcement officials said Reich’s actions probably did not break any criminal laws. Asst. Dist. Atty. Kevin McGee said discrimination does not violate criminal laws unless it is accompanied by the threat of force.

While Fuentes took his complaint to federal court, members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, called on the California Medical Board to take action against Reich and the clinic.

Marching single-file on the sidewalk in front of the clinic at 5725 Ralston Street, the group chanted: “Thelma Reich is talking nonsense! Take away her doctor’s license!”

Clinic administrator Phil Berger issued a statement in which he apologized for the incident and said the facility has a policy to accept all patients, including those with the human immunodeficiency virus, which is the precursor to full-blown AIDS.

Berger also told an ACT UP representative that Reich is no longer employed by his clinic because of her refusal to adhere to this policy.

“We’re not going to hire her back here, and I don’t think she would like to work here under the circumstances we have imposed,” Berger said.

Reich did not return repeated phone calls Thursday and Friday.

At one point during the demonstration the line of ACT UP members marched under the clinic’s carport, their whistles and loud chants drawing uncomfortable stares from patients and employees inside.

One onlooker, Ron DeBlauw of Oxnard, a conservative Republican candidate for the 37th Assembly seat, was shouted down by ACT UP demonstrators after he yelled out, “It’s a gay disease.”

Other office employees watched the events from neighboring second-floor balconies. Two hairstylists from a salon above the clinic supported the ACT UP members by bringing hot coffee to protesters who marched in the rain.

“These people need to be heard,” De’Cut stylist Ilene Reinhart said. “I couldn’t believe that doctor wouldn’t treat that man.”

Those who knew Reich--a diminutive woman from the Philippines who had been practicing medicine in the United States for many years--were surprised to hear that she was the focus of any controversy.

“I really liked the doctor,” said Kelly Nolan, a Ventura College student who was waiting in the clinic lobby for her twin sister, Kim, to be examined by another physician.

“When I found out she was the one they were protesting against, I was really shocked.”

An Oxnard physician, who supervised Reich at another clinic, praised her as “a good doctor who worked hard.”

“I’d even say she was an ideal employee,” said the physician, who requested anonymity. He suggested that Reich never considered the legal ramifications of putting her refusal to treat Fuentes in writing.

“She never really thought like a manager. I mean, she was more an Indian than a chief in the clinic.”

As the protest wound down, the demonstrators learned that Reich filed an application last month at the Oxnard Airport Urgent Care Center. Most of the ACT UP members caravaned to the Oxnard clinic and urged officials there not to hire Reich.

“If she is blatantly refusing to comply with state and federal law, she may very well have trouble getting a job anywhere,” said ACT UP member Aaron Phillips.

Officials at the clinic told the protesters that they were unaware of the controversy surrounding Reich’s resignation.

“We wouldn’t even have her come in to fill in for staff doctors with all this going on,” said Dr. Bob Oldt. He told protesters that the Oxnard clinic also had an official policy of treating everyone, including people with AIDS.