Chase Brexton Health Services, a Baltimore-based health care provider, will take over operation of the county’s HIV/AIDS clinic on March 1.

The current clinic, which handles about 125 patients and has been operated for the past decade by Johns Hopkins Medicine, is open two days a month at the Southeast Health Center on Durness Lane in North Laurel.

In its place, Chase Brexton will offer services five days a week at its Knoll North center in Columbia. Patients also can be seen at their Mount Vernon, Randallstown or Easton clinics, said Dawn O’Neill, the county’s deputy health officer.

County Health Officer Peter L. Beilenson said the change will save the county some $175,000 in administrative costs.

The department was tasked with saving $412,000 after mid-year budget cuts, he said, and is expecting to make more cuts because of the $1.9 billion state budget shortfall, he said.

“We were perfectly happy with Hopkins,” Beilenson said. “But we are very comfortable with the expertise of Chase Brexton, which allows us to preserve our services in hard economic times.”

Joel Jeppson, president of the AIDS Alliance of Howard County, said that after receiving a letter from Johns Hopkins explaining that it would cease operating its clinic here, he was concerned that HIV or AIDS services would no longer be offered in Howard County. He is less concerned now, he said, because “an acceptable program appears to be in place.”

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user comments (1)

user says...

It is very nice that Mr. Jeppsan was contacted with an explanation behind the reasoning that Johns Hopkins would cease operating its clinic here in Howard County. I am pleased that the AIDS Alliance of Howard County would elegantly be "less concerned" when a successful program such as the HIV Clinic is dismantled and given to a private entity. How many HIV/AIDS patients are on the board of the AIDS Alliance of Howard County and how many of those 125 patients were asked for their opinion of the closure of the Counties HIV Clinic closure before a public comment was released by the AIDS Alliance of Howard County? We must also ask who is going to take over the outreach aspect of getting the word out to our citizens of the dangers, on a real time level, that the clinic was able to muster. I am one of the patients that have been relocated and I can tell you that the support and accessibility that the citizens of Howard County lost, when the HIV Clinic closed, will not able to find an "acceptable replacement" at Chase Braxton and our counties communities will suffer unless something is turned around. HIV/AIDS is different then other communicable diseases in that it does not go away on its own and a shot of an antibiotic is not going to cure a young person of it a few days after a slip of moral responsibility. This disease (or virus) is only treatable through prevention and the HIV Clinic and its staff were one of the most effective clinics in the county. Truly it was a “one-stop-shop” for both meeting the needs of the infected and for the prevention of the virus from being spread to a wider population in the county then it has already reached. In many cases HIV/AIDS education must be nurtured not taught. Our clinic had refined that nurturing and all of us that were being treated for opportunistic infections and how to avoid them. We were nurtured and sometimes this nurturing would come in the form of some pretty hard realities. It is true that the fear what other people think about you is far harsher then what they are actually thinking. Our health care providers, case workers and outreach and education staff that were employed by the HIV Clinic at the Howard County Health Department were leaders in the state in education and prevention of this deadly epidemic. The statistics may not show it, as prevention is a rough thing to document on an excel spread sheet, the compassionate efforts of Clinical staff in Howard County are to be complemented but the low numbers of HIV positive people living in the county. Now that the clinic is gone and we have essentially said that we are not in need of their services which can not be further from the truth. Consumer sensitivity must be considered before “county wide” cuts are enacted. The process of cutting fundamental services to the citizens of Howard County might be more considerate then a mailing a notification enclosed in a 43 cent envelope through the mail. The nature and sensitivity of our county residents who have chosen to live under the restraints of this epidemic deserve more then “a budget-cut” explanation of those services once provided by the devoted staff of our county health department who served with a sense of community. Should we now anticipate that the state of Maryland will close the doors of the Maryland AIDS Administration due to reduced funding? Are we ready as a people to except the responsibility of reaching every member of the Howard County population and educating them as to the results that just one unprotected act of passion can have on a teenager’s life? I have seen the staff of the Health Departments HIV Clinic out on our side walks in our local communities making HIV testing and education available on Saturday mornings when our young people were getting their hair done for a hot night out on the town. I wonder if the “acceptable program” that Mr. Jeppsan of the AIDS Alliance of Howard County refers to will share the sincerity of the displaced staff of our now historical AIDS Clinic? If the AIDS Alliance of Howard County is to serve as a spokes person for the HIV/AIDS community then might they be interested in stepping up to the plate and asking those living with the virus and those who are actively engaged everyday in the prevention of the virus from being spread deeper into the community what they think about the HIV/AIDS clinic at the Health Department closing its’ doors before conceding to the demands of the political arena?

Posted 11:57 PM, 03.19.09 | Permalink