SAN DIEGO COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Precious Resource That Must Be Saved

The AIDS epidemic continues to tighten its deadly grip on San Diego, the nation and the world. Just this week a report out of the International Conference on AIDS in Amsterdam predicted that as many as 110 million people worldwide could be infected with the virus by the end of the century.

Another startling statistic, this one on the local level: Only about five or six San Diegans a day have been taking advantage of a cutting-edge day center for people with AIDS since it opened downtown seven months ago. That’s far less than the 40 people a day the center needs to break even.

Unless attendance dramatically increases soon, the San Diego Adult Day Health Center, one of only five such pilot projects in the nation, may be forced to close.

That cannot be allowed to happen. A day center for people with AIDS has long been a top priority of local activists and health providers. Such facilities operate at about one-tenth the costs of full hospitalization. That’s why $600,000 in state and private grants were secured to build the center in the first place.

Before the program opened, a survey of local health care providers uncovered hundreds of people who could benefit from the wide variety of services it now offers--counseling, nutrition and exercise programs, social activities, physical therapy and more.

Certainly, the need hasn’t diminished since then. In the seven months the center has operated, AIDS has been diagnosed in 340 more San Diegans--and 227 have died.

Why the lack of clients? The center has little money for advertising. It relies almost solely on word-of-mouth and referrals from other health care providers. That kind of network takes time to develop fully.

But perhaps the biggest impediment, according to local AIDS experts, is an attitude that has shadowed the disease from the beginning: denial. The center is capable of treating the very sick. But many of its expected clients would be people in the initial stages of the disease. It’s a huge, emotional step from being privately HIV-positive to actually feeling the disease take hold and reaching out for help. But it’s a step that must be taken.

Officials plan to modify center operations to also provide care for the elderly. That should provide a more stable client base. But, for the facility to truly fulfill its potential, the people the program was designed for must take advantage of it. They will be the ones who lose the most if this innovative effort fails.