Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A Tale of Two Clinics

In my town, there were once two clinics. One was devoted to counseling poor pregnant women in the hopes that they put their offspring up for adoption instead of having an abortion. It is in a nice section of town in a quaint old house and is staffed by three or four counselors.

Another clinic was devoted to distributing medicine and medical advice to people infected with the HIV virus. It was located on a remote stretch of highway in a trailer and served by one nurse.

Guess which one shut down due to lack of funding?

The AIDS clinic was really a life-saver. I know, because I used to drive an AIDS patient to the clinic to pick up his meds. It was ill-funded even while operational. Sometimes the meds were unavailable due to lack of supply. The nurse on staff (there was only one nurse) had no recourse. Many HIV patients go on unscheduled vacations from their medicine due to lack of funding. All the price breaks announced by Big Pharma are only for the benefit of people in Africa, not for Americans.

By the way, the building that once housed the AIDS clinic has been transformed into a headquarters for the local Republican party.

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