WASHINGTON (JUNE 26) – Jeffrey S. Crowley, the White House director of the Office of National AIDS Policy and senior advisor on disability policy, met with Howard University officials recently to see the advances being made by the university’s various programs to fight HIV and AIDS.
The purpose of the June 23 meeting was to illustrate to Crowley and the Obama Administration the importance of continued as well as increased funding for programs to reduce HIV/AIDS infections to ultimately find a cue.
“This is an opportunity for you to hear what we’ve been doing and what we’ve been doing successfully, said Goulda Downer, Ph.D., assistant professor, principal investigator for the National Minority AIDS Education and Testing Center and convener of the meeting at the university.
Crowley said President Barack Obama is committed to improvements in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts as part of his bigger push for health care reform.
“The president doesn’t stick his neck out on everything, but he has surely shown leadership and a commitment to change in regards to the nation’s health care system,” said Crowley, who worked on the failed effort to reform health care in the 1990s.
Crowley told the panel of health care practitioners and administrators gathered to discuss the subject that he felt a different air of optimism around health reform legislation for this year.
“It’s not if we do it,” he said, “but when we do it.”
Even when the legislation is passed and signed into law, the work of reforming the nation’s health care system will be far from over, Crowley said.
“It’s not going to be perfect,” he said, “and after we pass a law, there will be a lot of things needed to implement the law.”
Downer explained the expanse of her organization, now in its 10th year. The group provides HIV/AIDS education, training and prevention locally, nationally and internationally with programs in the Caribbean.
It has established National Clinicians Testing Day, she explained, to help remove the stigma attached to being tested for the disease by having health care workers volunteer publicly tested on that day.
Davene M. White, director of Howard University Hospital (HUH) Comprehensive Areas of Resources, Entitlement and Services, told Crowley about the success of a program to provide free cell phones to those with HIV/AIDS to get them to follow up on treatment for their illness.
Under the program, named Integrated Medication Adherence and Prevention Services, the participants get 450 free minutes as long as they call their nurse manager once a week to report and follow through on scheduled appointments.
The 10-year-old program “has been very successful,” White said, and has 60 HIV/AIDS-positive men and women in the program.
Dr. Celia J. Maxwell, assistant vice president for Health Sciences, director of Women’s Health Institute and the Center for Infectious Diseases Management and Research, talked about successes are increasing the number of people treated and screened for the deadly disease.
HUH has been able to get more HIV/AIDS patients to come in consistently for treatment by moving their visits from a clinic setting to private offices. Patients were more likely to come for treatment in private settings than in clinics because of the stigma associated with the disease, Maxwell said.
Additionally, the hospital has been offering routine screening to patients and others, who visit the hospital. The response has been good, she said.
Of the 30,000 patients offered the service, 80 percent, or 24,000 people, agreed to be screened, Maxwell said.
Dr. Sohail Rana, pediatrician and professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and Child Health and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/HIV, talked about the importance of funding for research to fight HIV/AIDS. During the early stages of the disease, 30 percent of the babies born at Howard University Hospital were HIV-positive, he said.
Now, because of advances made with the drug AZT, doctors are able to stop the transfer of the disease from HIV-positive pregnant women to their babies.
“I’ve watched children grow into adulthood, who otherwise wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have the research dollars for drugs like AZT,” Sohail said.
Downer said she thought the meeting was “excellent.”
“We were able to get the ear of the administration and we were allowed to share some of our innovative and pioneering approaches to HIV/AIDS regarding people of color, regionally, nationally and internationally.”
Downer said, “What I’m hoping is that when the administration begins to develop a national strategy, Howard University will be at the table as advisors, because we know how to deal with this issue.”
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