[Viva] Fwd: FW: Nice way to start the year- have a great 2015!!- Vancouver Sun -link below

[Margarite Sanchez]

Here is a forward from Dr. Neora Pick at the Oak Tree.





Vancouver Sun – Jan 1 2015 – see the link below











 *Medicine delivers miracles, can’t blunt stigma of AIDS*


Survivor has healthy baby girl, but still feels she has to hide her struggle



*BY KEVIN GRIFFIN, VANCOUVER SUN*   *JANUARY 1, 2015*



0



·         *STORY*

·         *PHOTOS ( 1 )*



[image: Medicine delivers miracles, can’t blunt stigma of AIDS]


‘They can’t reveal this disease because everyone is still frightened. It’s
quite dreadful. That’s the part I find the hardest,’ says Dr. Deborah
Money, vice-president, research, at BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre
and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of B.C.

Within a span of four years, Rhonda went from nearly dying from AIDS to
giving birth to a healthy baby girl.

Her story illustrates the challenges of AIDS in 2014. Science has made
incredible advances in treatment and prevention but the social stigma
associated with the disease remains almost as strong as always.

Rhonda collapsed in 2010. She was taken to hospital in a wheelchair, but
fell into a coma within hours. When she awoke three weeks later, she was
told she had AIDS.

She’d had no idea she was HIV positive.

“I cried for months,” she said. “I was in a fetal position, didn’t talk to
anyone, didn’t tell my family.”

“I thought: ‘I have AIDS. I want to die. I’m sick. I’m dirty. I’m gross. I
don’t want anybody touching me.’ That’s how I felt for a long time.”

She was told she might have been HIV-positive for as long as a decade.
Given her background, she can only imagine she was infected by a sexual
partner.

HIV stands for human immuno­deficiency virus, which weakens a person’s
immune system and makes the person susceptible to other infections. Once
HIV has weakened the immune system and the person has a life-threatening
illness or illnesses, that person has developed AIDS.

Rhonda wanted to talk about the great care she received at the Oak Tree
Clinic at BC Women’s Hospital but didn’t want to use her real name or have
a photograph taken because of the stigma still associated with HIV.

Rhonda said it took two years to deal with the shock of discovering she had
AIDS and to get healthy before she could tell her mother and close family
members. Even then, the stigma associated with AIDS was so intense for her
that she became physically ill every time she talked about it.

One place she found that was stigma-free was the Oak Tree Clinic. There,
Rhonda said, she was hugged and treated like a family member.

They helped her regain the will to live and to start a family.

As well as the stigma, Rhonda said she didn’t want to go public because she
didn’t want to place a burden on her child. In five years, when her
daughter is in school, she doesn’t want her to face the possibility of
being bullied or singled out because of the disease her mother has.

“I don’t think all day long, ‘I’m gong to die.’ Oak Tree was what I needed
to get back into a healthy state,” Rhonda said in an interview at Oak Tree.

“They help you stay on your meds. The importance is monumental. They’re
uplifting. They’re beyond caring. Not for a second do you feel like you’re
talking to a doctor or nurse. You can catch your breath. No one here is
judging me.”

There were 272 new cases of HIV in B.C. in 2013, an increase from 237 in
2012, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control. Despite last year’s
rise, the recent trend is for fewer people to test positive for HIV: in
2011, there were 288 new cases; in 2010, 300; in 2009, 337; and in 2008,
347.

Since it was started 20 years ago, the Oak Tree Clinic has treated more
than 5,500 HIV-positive women. Since 1994, the rate of transmission during
pregnancy from mother to fetus has dropped from between 25 and 35 per cent
to less than one per cent, said Dr. Deborah Money, vice-president of
research at BC Women’s.

This year also marks the 20th year since researchers such as Money
discovered that HIV medications can prevent transmission during pregnancy.

“It’s difficult to get the messaging right that there have been huge
successes but the problem has not gone away,” she said. “We still have new
infections every year in B.C. and Canada. We have 35 million people around
the world with this disease — over half are women.”

Money said the success of Oak Tree comes from having a multidisciplinary
team in one location where women and families can meet with a team that
includes HIV physicians, pediatricians, obstetricians, pharmacists,
dietitians, social workers and psychiatrists.

“I think the history would say that it’s proven to be a very effective
model,” Money said in an interview.

“The women will tell you it makes a huge difference for them. We try to
bring as much as we can to one location and make it friendly, make the
waiting room a place where you can have children playing.”

In an interview, Money said the stigma around HIV and AIDS remains very
real.

She said Rhonda’s story of having to hide her identity is virtually
identical for every woman who comes into Oak Tree Clinic.

“They can’t tell their neighbour, family, friends,” she said. “It’s not
like telling a person you have breast cancer and everyone rallies around
you. They can’t reveal this disease because everyone is still frightened.
It’s quite dreadful. That’s the part I find the hardest.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Medicine+delivers+miracles+blunt+stigma+AIDS/10694924/story.html



Have a great 2015!!

Neora


*Neora Pick, MD, FRCPC*Medical Director, Oak Tree Clinic
Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases,
Department of Medicine, UBC
Tel:   604-875-2274 | Fax: 604-875-3063
Email: npick at cw.bc.ca
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