When Ink on Paper Is Good Medicine : AIDS Resource Handbook for Physicians Needed, but There’s a Financial Catch
Surely, this far along into the frightening AIDS epidemic, just about every doctor would know what to tell people who test positive for the virus that is believed to cause it. Well, that was our assumption. So, when we heard that the Valley HIV/AIDS Center in Van Nuys was printing up a handbook on the subject for doctors and needed more funding for additional copies, we wondered whether it was necessary.
We’ve been educated. It’s a darned good idea.
In 1981, Dr. Michael Gottlieb published the first paper identifying the existence of a new and fatal illness. It was later determined to be AIDS. About 95% of the clients of the San Fernando Valley-based physician are AIDS patients. Gottlieb says that those who have just learned that they have the human immunodeficiency virus “are in need of a lot of immediate good advice. The average physician doesn’t have the answers immediately at hand.”
That’s been the experience of Ana Vargas, a client outreach coordinator at the Valley HIV/AIDS Center. Most doctors provide HIV testing, she said, but many are not well versed in what to say when the tests are positive.
The handbook attempts to list all of the services available in the Valley for people with AIDS or HIV. It will also inform people about where to obtain legal services and mental-health counseling and tell them how to find support groups and food programs. Most importantly, perhaps, it will contain information on crisis-intervention hot lines and details about where to obtain medical treatment, such as a list of dentists who accept patients with HIV.
The group called AIDS Project Los Angeles already has a self-care guide on such important issues as how to maintain health insurance, where to obtain counseling and protecting one’s rights as an employee.
The Vargas group’s handbook should be available by midsummer, so far only in English. But 35% of her clientele are Latino, some with limited English abilities.
“In the Latino community, this is too often seen still as a disease that only affects people who are gay or drug addicts. There is a lot of denial going on,” Vargas says. “We need to reach this population.”
Another $4,000 will be needed to have 10,000 handbooks printed in Spanish. It’s money that Vargas’ group does not have. Its goal of obtaining it and printing the handbooks is worthy of praise and support.
