Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 25, 1995 TAG: 9503270041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No doctors have attended, although many were notified of the meetings, said Linda Ferguson, a council consultant.
That troubles her.
"I sense that it's not high enough on their agenda," Ferguson said.
This month, the council is conducting assessments to find out what HIV/AIDS services are available in the 29-county region it serves and to identify gaps in those services.
On Friday, 10 people from Roanoke-area hospitals, health care businesses and human service organizations attended an assessment meeting at the Council of Community Services in Roanoke, where the AIDS Council is based.
The group listed the services available, what services were needed and how agencies could work together to best serve people with HIV or AIDS, their families and their communities.
One concern kept surfacing: attitude. It is one of the biggest barriers to providing services, they said.
"There is not enough understanding that people who are HIV-positive are not that much different from people with the flu," one person at the meeting said. "They've become outcasts."
Doctors may share the same fears and prejudices, Ferguson said.
"That's a big reason why doctors should be involved," she said. "They are the front-line people. And if they can be more vocal about things and say that this is a public health issue - not anything about being gay - people are going to listen."
"People are still in the denial stage," said Doug Leftwich, co-chairman of COHORT, a Roanoke community action group. "We don't realize how underground AIDS is."
And as a result, services in some localities are not what they could be.
The AIDS Council receives funding through the Ryan White Care Act of 1990, federal money that is funneled to the council through the Virginia Department of Health. Fund recipients were asked to conduct needs assessments of HIV/AIDS services in the communities they serve.
Ryan White funds are supposed to be used for medical services, but resources are so lacking in some Western Virginia communities that the money is being used for such services as transportation.
"There's so much denial that it's a problem," Ferguson said. "The thing that is so frustrating, from a medical perspective, is that it's such a highly infectious disease but because it has to do with sexuality, the community is not addressing it.
"If it were polio, we'd be on it in a second."
The AIDS Council serves Southwest, Southside and central Virginia. The region has 578 HIV cases. Of those, 241 are in the Roanoke Valley. The region has 504 AIDS cases. Of those, 151 are in the Roanoke Valley. Fourteen are children.
"At best, it's an underrepresentation of the actual number of people," Ferguson said.
The AIDS Council will prepare a final report after its six needs-assessment meetings are completed. The report will provide a "portrait" of HIV/AIDS services in Western Virginia.
The AIDS Council of Western Virginia will hold another HIV/AIDS needs-assessment meeting Tuesday from 1:30-3:30 p.m. in the Ballator Room of the Moody Center at Hollins College.
by CNB