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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1990)
AIDS conference on women and children A ID S antibody screening Their second-class status exacerbates problems said she urges a team approach. “I give them all the information. I tell them the good and the b a d .. .1 tell them we’re a team he same problems that pinch the lives of here. W e’ll make the decisions as a team. I women in this country— poverty, lack of health care and child care—place an additional consciously try to empower all my patients.” While more women are feeling the impact squeeze on women with HIV-disease and of AIDS as patients, many others arc affected AIDS, a health activist and educator told because they care for people with the disease. participants at a conference in Portland last Heather Andersen, a training and curriculum month. specialist from the University of Washington, The two-day conference, “Women, Children said that women who care for people with and HIV,” aimed to address a range of concerns AIDS, whether professionally or within their prompted by the rising numbers of children and families, often lack crucial support. women in the Northwest whose lives are AIDS can confront caregivers with multiple touched by AIDS. losses, the jarring impact of young people’s As of July 23, there were 32 women diagnosed with AIDS in Oregon, a 52 percent increase over the previous year. Those statistics are slight in comparison with New York City, where AIDS is the leading cause of death among women aged 25-39, but the rising numbers trigger a host of medical, economic, legal and emotional questions. Conference panels and workshops addressed some of these concerns, including pregnancy counseling with HIV -positive women, cultural sensitivity, HIV education in schools, women’s treatment issues and family counseling with HIV-infected children. Many of the speakers and participants sounded a recurring theme: that the impact of AIDS on women and children is exacerbated by their second-class status. “Women are not a priority in this country,” said Elizabeth Waters, president of the board of the Oregon Minority AIDS Coalition. “We need to say, “This disease is killing us. The programs set up to treat men don’t meet our needs.’” AIDS affects disproportionate numbers of women and children of color, people who deaths and a sense of helplessness because the traditionally have been denied access to health disease can’t be “fixed,” Andersen said. care and other resources. “For myself, I think the sadness and grief is “African-American people are very so deep that there’s no bottom to it,” she said. communal,” Waters said, speaking on a panel To combat that sadness and frustration, she of women and children personally affected by suggested women should examine the satisfac AIDS. W aters’ best friend, an African- tions they get from caregiving, which might American man, died of AIDS in August. “This include a sense of connection to others, a disease is destroying my people,” she said. challenge and a feeling of being needed. In another workshop, Jocelyn White, chief “We have to find out what’s truly in it for us resident at Good Samaritan Hospital, discussed and hang onto that,” she said. the ways that treatment of women with AIDS is A final panel reinforced the human affected by the politics of gender. dimension of HIV-disease. Nancy Lawson, who Often, women don’t see a physician learned she was HIV-positive in March 1987, regularly, or they see only a gynecologist, who said she simply grapples with each day, trying may not be familiar with AIDS symptoms and to stay upbeat. care, she said. “I don’t feel there’s anything heroic about “The impact of any illness in a woman is my own life,” she said. “All I do is what’s in going to be different because there are front of me—sometimes it’s the dishes; differences in a woman’s lifestyle and in the sometimes it’s talking to some people.” way a woman sees the world,” White said. In response to a question from a member of Still, she said, most of the symptoms and ACT-UP Seattle about what tactics might be treatments for AIDS are the same for both men most valuable in combating AIDS, Waters and women, and White recommends good noted that a range of responses, not one single nutrition, multi-vitamin supplements, regular answer, is the most crucial tool. exercise and reduced exposure to sunlight (it "The number one hope is that they find a makes white blood cells less active) to all her cure for this disease,” she said. “The other HIV-affected patients. encouraging thing is that this disease is While many patients, and women in bringing people together who would not have particular, may be accustomed to taking a been brought together otherwise.” passive role in their own medical care. White V BY A N N D E E H O C H M A N T SANDRA K. PINCHES, Ph.D. Counseling and Psychotherapy 1809 N.vv. Johnson. 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