State and county officials "get creative" to reach residents about prevention, testing
ALLISON RUPP Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Monday, November 24, 2008 12:00 am
Ramona Baca-Garcia isn't embarrassed to talk about what it's like to receive a positive HIV test or live every day with AIDS.
"I don't want to hide," Baca-Garcia said. "If I can help one person to not have to go through what I went through, it's worth it."
She willingly tells stories of leaving Casper to join gangs in Los Angeles, dealing drugs in Tijuana, Mexico and returning home to Wyoming in 2004 to find out she had AIDS.
Four years later, Baca-Garcia is sharing her story through the Real AIDS Prevention Project, a community-level HIV prevention program. She and her friend, Sandy Hillesheim, are "peer networkers" and talk to people about safe sex and intravenous drug use and the importance of being tested.
"I try to find the people who no one else will talk to, like the person shooting up drugs on the street who thinks he's invincible," Baca-Garcia said. "I'm going to find him. I used to think I was invincible."
RAPP highlights the types of creative programming and messaging HIV and AIDS educators in the state have devised.
Times have changed since the height of the media frenzy surrounding HIV and AIDS in the 1980s and '90s, said Anna Kinder, director of the Wyoming AIDS Education and Training Center.
"It's not in the media," Kinder said. "There is no one famous with it right now. Magic Johnson is doing great granted with the help of all the medication he is on."
Kinder does not want people to forget AIDS is still around and significantly affects more than 175 Wyoming residents.
Here is what Natrona County and Wyoming are doing:
Targeting heterosexuals
HIV and AIDS educators in the state still struggle with people who think the disease affects only gay men.
"Some people still have their heads buried," said Laurie Johnson, clinical director of Early Intervention Services for people with HIV and AIDS. "They think it's not in Wyoming, that it's a gay man's disease."
About 47 percent of people living with the disease in the state classify themselves as heterosexual, Johnson said, and 25 percent are women.
RAPP targets women because the program was created several years ago when heterosexual women were a growing risk population.
"Routinizing" testing
Kinder said the state has had to "get creative" to find avenues to make testing more available for patients and more routine for health care providers.
For example, the dental clinic at the Community Health Center of Central Wyoming offers HIV testing to patients.
Rob Johnston, HIV prevention program manager with the Wyoming Department of Health, said rapid testing has opened doors.
He said his program offers tests at most of Wyoming Equality's events. Wyoming Equality is a group that works for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.
He said when he lived in Las Vegas, they offered the test in bars, but Wyoming is not there yet. He said it requires a larger staff and reducing the stigma.
Making physicians comfortable
Many Wyoming doctors do not feel comfortable dealing with HIV and AIDS, according to Dowell. They do not always know what to do with a positive test.
He said the more comfortable the doctor is with the disease, the easier it will be to recommend an HIV test for someone with risk factors or talk about sexually transmitted diseases.
Kinder has developed training for providers on how to test and counsel someone who asks for an HIV test. She will be hosting a teleconference for providers and others in January about HIV screening.
"The thing that we get consistently from providers is, 'Why do we need to do this when there is such a low rate?'" Kinder said.
Reducing the stigma
Dowell said a person with HIV has the life expectancy of only 10 to 15 years less than someone without the virus, if the person receives the right treatment.
"When I first started this, a person had only four to nine months to live," Dowell said.
People need to understand the disease isn't a death sentence anymore, he said, and it is easily prevented.
"With knowledge we can prevent transmission," Dowell said.
Baca-Garcia hopes by sharing her story with people, she can prevent at least one person from becoming infected.
"When you talk about AIDS, Hep C [Hepatitis C] and how I have them, people tend to listen," she said. "I hit them with the truth of it all."
Contact health reporter Allison Rupp at (307) 266-0534 or allison.rupp@trib.com.