AIDS day speakers hope to be heard

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

MONTICELLO, NY — In an effort to get out the facts in a community still afflicted by misunderstanding and stigma, speakers working directly with HIV-positive clients in Sullivan County presented a program for the public on World AIDS Day, December 1.

“Our folks are educating people all the time about the illness and needs of clients,” said Gerard Ilaria, HIV program director at Catskill Regional Medical Center (CRMC).

With about 270 people known to be suffering from the immune deficiency disease, Sullivan County has New York State’s highest concentration of HIV per capita outside New York City. And according to local experts, clients in this population face a multitude of challenges.

Ilaria said the number of residents suffering from HIV disease could be as high as 420, since about one-third of the population has not been identified. Some are crossing county lines to seek treatment.

The focus of World AIDS Day this year was issues facing women, a clear indication that HIV is far less limited to a male population than it was a decade ago.

Clients served by Ilaria’s caseworkers are made up of about 54 percent males and 46 percent females, the majority of which are heterosexual. One-half are co-infected with Hepatitis C.

Ilaria leads a team working every day to keep clients well, immunologically. Some are responding to medications better than others. Ilaria said one-third of the population is employed, even though they suffer from a severe disability.

Welfare is less supportive than it could be, he said. “It’s shocking how poor some of our clients are.”

Ilaria’s presentation at Sullivan’s World AIDS Day program, held at the Neighborhood Facility in Monticello, was titled, “Do We Know Much About It?” The answer to that question, Ilaria said, is “yes and no,” because although so much information exists, that does not mean people are informed.

Unjustified fear within the community recently convinced CRMC to opt against moving the hospital’s HIV program to a new 4,000 square-foot office space on Jefferson Street in Monticello. The program is currently “shoehorned” into a much smaller space at the hospital in Harris, Ilaria said.

Tenants in the Jefferson Street building expressed concern about contracting the disease, and CRMC responded by keeping the program on its campus.

Ilaria said the problem of ignorance is widespread, partly because political leaders in the United States rarely talk about HIV.

Still, with two federal grants and Ilaria’s leadership, the CRMC program has been able to employ a team of nurses, two specialist physicians, two bilingual case managers, a nutritionist, a psychotherapist and a dentist. And John Nelson has been able to develop a program wherein teenagers educate their peers about the disease.

On December 1, Nelson presented the topic, “How to Talk to Teenagers and Kids about HIV.”

Elaine Farrell, community educator at AIDS-Related Community Services (ARCS), presented an overview of the disease during a talk entitled “HIV: the Basics.”

The Recovery Center’s AIDS Task Force organized the annual candlelight vigil, held Wednesday night after the program, at Saint John’s Episcopal Church.

Farrell said the task force is always in need of volunteers to assist HIV-positive clients. And food is needed for pantries, sponsored by ARCS, which provide food for clients through the holidays and year round.

For more information call David Lovegreen at 914/345-8888.