January 9, 2007
The Ryan White CARE Act is the principal source of funding for the AIDS Care Group. Annual budgets have grown from $425,000 in 1998 to $2,480,000 in 2007. The legislation authorizing the Ryan White CARE Act was recently re-enacted for a period of three years. These next three years will see funding cuts of 5%. More cuts are expected at a time when more patients will be seeking care; and more of those patients will be without insurance. The AIDS Care Group is taking a long-term view of a predicament that will become palpable within the next three years. To off-set anticipated funding losses the AIDS Care Group is planning for the development of profit centers within its core of clinical and social services, including dental care, housing, and addictions counseling. With proper planning, networking, and marketing, the AIDS Care Group will introduce fee-for-services in each of its identified program-sustaining divisions. Such marketing will allow for the agency to meet the needs of the insured, and the low-income workers who are currently in need of care and services. With a business and marketing plan tailored to the contiguous communities in which the AIDS Care Group already provides services, the nature of the income stream to the agency will change dramatically, thereby establishing a group of services identified to sustain other services where funding will most likely be reduced by government support and grants.
Smoking, crack cocaine, heroine, and now gambling. Addictions have been a way of life in Chester for over fifty years. Substance abuse has been identified as the single greatest cause of the level of crime throughout the city; and is most probably the cause for domestic chaos, low educational attainment rates, and the HIV disease progression rate. With State laws currently allowing for the introduction of gambling, Chester has been given the first license for harness racing and will undoubtedly be identified as one of the first municipalities in the state requiring expansion of gambling addiction services. Accessing timely and culturally sensitive services for the patient living with HIV disease and addictions is complicated by independent providers working without the benefit of appropriate funding streams for the care of the uninsured and the under-insured. The AIDS Care Group will be incorporating substance abuse counseling and gambling addictions counseling to its range of psychosocial services in the coming years.
There are significant psychosocial issues including anxiety and depression, with few opportunities for relief, when living with HIV disease. It is hard to heal the wounds of poverty, crime, and disease through medical care alone. Community offers the opportunity to address disease stigma with the strength of many voices, each sharing their pain and their plan to find a road to recovery. The AIDS Care Group provides the medical and dental clinical services, the psychiatric and psychosocial support groups, and the case management and peer counseling to address each client’s needs.