Caring Care for AIDS Patients

A person hospitalized with AIDS should have medical treatment from a caring staff in surroundings that provide emotional support. Steps are being taken at both local and state levels to help increase that kind of care for people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Each move may seem small in itself, but in combination all are very important.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has just approved creating a specialized ward for AIDS patients at County-USC Medical Center. The ward would care for as many as 20 patients. There are now 25 to 40 people with AIDS and AIDS-related diseases in wards throughout the hospital. The hospital’s AIDS clinic also handles about 1,400 outpatient visits a month. It is badly overtaxed and needs attention, too.

Two concerns had been raised: cost and possible isolation of patients with AIDS. One estimate said that the ward could cost $300,000 to $500,000, but that may be money that would be spent modernizing a ward. Simply moving people together in one ward need not cost anything like that amount. AIDS patients today are all too often isolated from the concern of friends and families and even medical professionals. Patient after patient has said that he prefers being in a ward where he knows that the staff chooses to be there. The supervisors’ humane action at the suggestion of the county Commission on AIDS should now be followed by equally prompt action at the hospital.

In Sacramento, the Legislature is in the process of establishing standards for hospice programs. That’s important to help ensure that people who are dying get a uniform standard of professional treatment. The measure, AB 3710, is sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) at the behest of the AIDS Hospice Foundation. It is especially vital to those with AIDS because of the growing number of programs, including some that call themselves hospices but offer questionable levels of care. Another Polanco bill, AB 4536, would change existing licensing laws for residential treatment centers so that they could be created for the terminally ill, especially for AIDS victims, as well as for the physically disabled.

Considering the tragically increasing need for these hospices, these bills deserve both passage and the governor’s signature. They would help place California in the forefront of AIDS care.