Reduced funding for care services provided to HIV/AIDS patients in the Bronx has caused the region a higher general percentage of the city’s AIDS-connected deaths. Thirty percent of the New York’s patients who have deaths of AIDS are all based in Bronx. Notably, barely 23.3 percent of the New York’s HIV/AIDS are placed in the region (Hanna, Felsen, Ginsberg, Zingman, Beil, Futterman, & Anastos, 2016) . Bronx occupants are dying at a high rate because of AIDS, partly because they are not conscious that they had the disease. Branson, Chavez, Hanscom, Greene, McKinstry, Buchacz, and Naab (2017) revealed that 250,000 out of the 850,000 of the adult occupants in the region have never undergone a HIV/AIDS test.
The rate of deaths in the Bronx because of AIDS is about 10 times more than the national level. Health practitioners elaborated this scenario and claimed that nearly 25% of its occupants only discover they are infected after the disease has HIV/AIDS’s stage has advanced to full-blown levels (Abara, Coleman, Fairchild, Gaddist, & White, 2015). In an elaborate initiative organized by the New York City Department of Health, there is an effort to make testing of HIV a fundamental segment of routine medical care in all heath centers. The aims of the study are to establish how the victims of HIV/AIDS in the Bronx can be identified early enough when the diseases has not progressed to full-blown levels, and to establish effective methods of improving the health care system . The HIV testing that has been considered is only limited to medical care of patients with mammograms, cholesterol assessments and fixing broken arms. According to Branson et al. (2017), irrespective of what is being experienced in the health care system, when HIV testing has been integrated as part of the routine check, many individuals will be willing to do it. A large section of practitioners from the South Bronx have rejected this initiative when on the other hand, all these individuals are committed to combatting the disease and consoling with the victims.
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The initiatives of sensitization and testing in the region have not been effective in the past. Testing for HIV should go beyond drawing blood or taking the swab to test. In some facilities such as CitiWide Harm Reduction, about 80 percent of the patients are having the HIV virus (Futterman, Stafford, Meissner, Lyle-Gassama, Blank, DuBois, &Swartz, 2016) . The testing should entail engaging the patient in a therapeutic session. Currently, most practitioners in the region are not keen in engaging all parts of the treatment process of the patient. Practitioners have an obligation to do a pre- and post-test counseling to help the patient go through the traumatic process carefully and cope with a diagnosis process. Some HIV consultants as well as the medical professionals are not keen on handling patients with respect and dignity.
As far as what is to be done is concerned, the research will be centered on the ways in which disease control can be enhanced through heightening the quality of medical services offered in the Bronx. Probably, it would require the health officials to begin a new plan that will motivate physicians to counsel their patients about HIV before they initiate their consent to be tested. New York state law demands the counseling session on HIV/AIDS takes about 20 minutes (Abara, Coleman, Fairchild, Gaddist, & White, 2015). The study will embrace a remedial measure in which the lawmakers will be advised to reduce this time to five minutes or less. Many studies have confirmed that the reduction of consent barriers lead to a dramatic increase in the testing rates.
In conclusion, the study on HIV/AIDS in the Bronx is timely, particularly at a period when the number of death rates are rising. AIDS specialists must support such studies that are intended to advice on better counseling, testing and treatment that are multifaceted and compassionate. The entire idea of testing individuals is prevention and when people are counseled, they get the tools. Ultimately, the rates of deaths can be reduced in the region.
References
Abara, W., Coleman, J. D., Fairchild, A., Gaddist, B., & White, J. (2015). A faith-based community partnership to address HIV/AIDS in the Southern United States: Implementation, challenges, and lessons learned. Journal of religion and health , 54 (1), 122-133.
Branson, B. M., Chavez, P. R., Hanscom, B., Greene, E., McKinstry, L., Buchacz, K., & Naab, T. (2017). Expanding hospital HIV testing in the Bronx, New York and Washington, DC: Results from the HPTN 065 study. Clinical Infectious Diseases .
Futterman, D., Stafford, S., Meissner, P., Lyle-Gassama, M., Blank, A., DuBois, L., & Swartz, J. (2016). Ten sites, 10 years, 10 lessons: scale-up of routine HIV testing at community health centers in the Bronx, New York. Public Health Reports , 131 (1_suppl), 53-62.
Hanna, D. B., Felsen, U. R., Ginsberg, M. S., Zingman, B. S., Beil, R. S., Futterman, D. C., & Anastos, K. (2016). Increased antiretroviral therapy use and virologic suppression in the Bronx in the context of multiple HIV prevention strategies. AIDS research and human retroviruses , 32 (10-11), 955-963.
