Hope Is Vital

Today, I had the honor of participating in the annual HIV/AIDS Media Day in Montgomery with approximatley 200 other Alabamians.  This is when HIV advocates from around the state go to Montgomery to meet with their legislators and the state health officer and have a media lunch.  These advocates include Aids Service Organization directors and staffers, folks like me that are board members or just people that care, and most importantly - the clients themselves. 

Sometimes I wonder how I wound up in this field or if God means for me to still be there or to let it go.  Then, there are days like today.  At least 100 people living with HIV and AIDs in the State of Alabama put on that red t-shirt, went to Montgomery, and shook their elected official's hand and told their story.  Getting to be a part of that moment humbles me.

This year, AIDS advocates in the state are requesting to keep the $7.88 million dollars listed in the Governor's Budget under the General Trust Fund.  This goes to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, with $600,000 going to the 10 or 11 AIDS Service Organizations around the state that offer prevention, testing, services, and case management for those living with HIV/AIDS.  Quite literally, without this, the state health department will not only be unable to help newly diagnosed patients with their medicines and create a waiting list, but they will have to start deciding who to take off their medicine.  Sitting there in that packed room of people, I did not know who had HIV and who did not (unless they had disclosed, of course). I thought about having to pick who in that room would receive life and who would not. I could not imagine being tasked with that choice.

This has already started in Arkansas, where the health department sent out letters this week to let patients know they will no longer be providing their medicines because of the state budget.  These days, despite the side-effects, a person infected with HIVcan live for 20 years or more if they stay on their medicine.  To take someone off their medicine, is quite literally preparing them to die.  These medicines can cost thousands of dollars a month, so who of us could afford them without assistance? 

There are assistance programs through drug companies, so there are other options for these patients.  However, the same case managers that would enroll them in these drug programs are paid out of the $7.88 million, so if they are laid off due to budget cuts then patients still go without medicine.

The second budget request is for $330,000 in the Education Trust Fund for prevention education.  Again, this funding is spread between all the state ASOs, so it comes down to about $30,000 a year per agency.  West Alabama AIDS Outreach is responsible for HIV prevention education for 11 counties. 
This is vital because HIV/AIDS is spreading most quickly in the rural South.  Every day, a young adult in Alabama is diagnosed with HIV.  WAAO is getting an influx of new patients, and lately most of them have been young people that are clueless of what living with HIV means.
 
If you feel led to contact State Senator Roger Bedford, State Senator Hank Sanders (the chairs of the finance committees), or your locally elected Senators and Representatives about this, then thank you.  I understand if you don't because we are all called to take action on different things.  But, if you do, thank you.  Our legislature needs to know that people in Alabama do care about people with HIV and AIDS.

I'm aware I could write a book on this, so I'll stop now :).

Bedford: senbedford@aol.com,
State House: Room 730-B

11 S. Union Street
Montgomery, AL 36130
(334) 242-7862

Sanders:
Room 730

11 S. Union Street
Montgomery, AL 36130
(334) 242-7860