Serving Whitman County since 1877

New AIDS consortium helps out patients

Committed to improving the lives of the HIV-positive, but frustrated by the bureaucracy of public funding, a pair of retired health department nurses have taken HIV assistance into their own hands.

“We’re way passionate about assisting folks who want to live here,” said LaVonne Hall. “We just want to do it with as little hoops and as little paperwork as possible.”

Hall, Steptoe, and Judy Stone, Palouse, run the Palouse HIV Consortium. They ran the consortium from 2001 to 2009 through the county health department.

In 2008, however, the money dwindled to the point it cost the health department more to manage the consortium’s finances than the $2,000 it received in state and federal funding.

New state restrictions also forbid counties from helping HIV patients pay transportation costs of getting to their doctors.

With Whitman County’s remote location, the nearest HIV specialist is in Spokane. Hall and Stone found that restriction to be untenable.

“People want to live on the Palouse, whether they have family here or they just love it here, but they have to go to Spokane to see their doctor,” said Stone. “No matter what, people should have the right to live where they want.”

The HIV-infected population on the Palouse typically numbers around 20 people. Though newer medications can extend a patient’s life, more than one-third cannot work because of the side effects.

For many patients in Whitman County, that lack of work has forced them to move to Spokane or other cities because they can no longer afford the transportation cost to get to an HIV specialist.

So in 2009, they split off the consortium and made it a non-profit charitable corporation.

That status outside the confining regulations placed on public entities allows the consortium to decide what expenses it will pay.

It also allows them to do more work with patients from Moscow and Latah County.

For the most part, the money goes to special cell phones, gas money or to cover the laundry list of vitamins, anti-depressants and other medications not covered by insurance.

On their own time and using their own paper and stamps, Stone and Hall are constantly on the watch for grants they can apply for to fund the consortium.

Case managers within the Whitman and Latah health departments refer HIV-positive patients in need to the consortium.

“Whatever we can do to help, we try to do,” said Hall.

To help fund the consortium, they will be selling crafts made by Stone at next weekend’s Colfax Autumn Harvest Hullabaloo. All proceeds will go into the consortium’s coffers.

They have also received contributions from several local organizations like the grandmothers clubs in Colfax and Rosalia, St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and the Moscow Food Co-Op.

For information on how to help or to donate, email the consortium: palousehivconsor@palouse.com.

 

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