Our America: Rising Rate Of HIV In DC...

 

yes.  there are services that will pick up the elderly and disabled to take them to receive medical treatment.

 

i'm convinced the lady across the street from me gets picked up for church as well too i think...lol

 

anyway, one of the outreach programs my old company would perform included an algorithm that would analyze the members diagnosis, charts and claims for top serious disease (disease management) .  and if there were any flags that would suggest that the member wasn't receiving scheduled care or filling scheduled scripts...one of our nurses would call them to try to id the issue.  often it was transportation (lack of) related...in which case the nurse would connect/coordinate the member with the necessary service agencies...

I have to agree as well. As someone who works on the ground level of one of the poorest communities in Chicago I have to agree. My friends, family and I  used to have conversations about this very thing and each time we would be scratching our heads. Everyone knows about HIV/AIDS, STD's ,etc, right? Knowing about and taking hold of your health are 2 different things. And there are several factors at play including poverty, access to resources, the stigma associated with the resources and the diseases, education, hopelessness, blind trust, fear, etc. Things are not equal everywhere. 

I can speak from my experience in the ER. It never fails that around 2 am on a random day I would get a few young ladies who tell the triage nurse that they are there for abdominal or back pain. You get them to the back and they reveal that they also have cramping or vaginal discharge. We do a pelvic and offer them the antibiotic cocktail affectionately called the "party pack." When I would also offer HIV testing they would either quietly decline or get highly offended. Some clinicians wouldn't even offer it because they know that they may get cussed out. Its a shame because the same act that potentially exposed them to STD's also expose them to HIV. And having an STD puts you at higher risk for HIV infection.

Its also interesting to note that there are other times when young couples come together and only the girl is getting tested. I always offer for the partner but they shy away and in some cases also get angry. They are not willing to acknowledge that her having it means that they likely have it as well. Then there are the cases of the guys getting treated on the low and then pretending that the "dirty thot" got it from someone else. Boils my blood every time. This is also why I will not blame this epidemic on DL men. There are enough straight people who make poor sexual health decisions to negate that. 

And Rohan, I can also agree that this hopeless mindset also expands to other areas of healthcare and diagnoses especially in regards to hypertension, renal disease, and diabetes.