LAGUNA BEACH : Clinic Hopes to Offer AIDS Program

The Laguna Beach Community Clinic wants to offer the first program in South County to provide early intervention medical care for people who have tested positive for the AIDS virus.

Clinic officials said the program could start as soon as next year if funding is found.

“We’re projecting this program will begin sometime around the first of the year,” said Gary Erb, director of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic. “I think our chances are probably 80% that we’ll find the funding.”

Currently, South County residents with the AIDS virus who cannot afford a private physician must travel to the county Health Care Agency in Santa Ana for initial care, including regular blood tests to monitor their immune system.

Early intervention in AIDS care, intended to guard the patient’s health before symptoms develop, is a critical element in extending the lives of people who have contracted the virus.

“Every year before the City Council, I have beat the drum around this issue,’ said AIDS Services Foundation Priscilla Munro, who as a former Laguna Beach Community Clinic board member lobbied the Laguna Beach City Council during recent budget hearings for $35,000 to help start the clinic. “Early intervention allows people to receive needed medical and psycho-social services that will give them a better quality and longevity of life. It’s key to survival with HIV disease.”

The Laguna Beach Community Clinic is a private, nonprofit health care agency that provides services to the poor or uninsured. The clinic currently does AIDS testing but must refer those who test positive elsewhere.

If early intervention care was available in South County, Erb said, patients would be more likely to take advantage of it. Patients in the more advanced stages of the disease--who require AIDS medication, such as AZT--would still be referred to the county clinic in Santa Ana, Erb said.

Erb estimated that it would cost $100,000 to run the program in its initial year. It is not certain that the program can raise the money from city, county and private donors, though.

Although the Laguna Beach City Council has given $5,000 to the clinic to plan for the program, it has not yet decided to provide the $35,000 requested as its share of start-up money for the first year of operation.

Mayor Robert F. Gentry said the idea was for the city to help launch a program, which would then be “picked up and supported by” federal funds expected to come into the county next year for AIDS services.

However, Orange County AIDS coordinator Penny Weismuller said the county is not close to deciding how those federal funds should be disbursed to best meet the needs of Orange County’s AIDS patients.

“Those decisions haven’t been made, and there has to be an open process by which those decisions would be made,” Weismuller said. “I know the Laguna Beach Community Clinic is interested in doing this. I know of other places also interested in doing this. They don’t happen to be in South County.”

Erb suggested federal funds might be used most efficiently if the county and the community clinic worked together to create an early intervention clinic in Laguna Beach.

“We have approached the county and expressed our desire to be a part of whatever program the county may develop,” Erb said.

Erb said he has had positive response from the community and from prospective foundation donors and that, with or without federal funds, he plans to move forward with the Laguna Beach project.