Church Offers Help to Those With AIDS

After Armando Rios found out he had contracted acquired immune deficiency syndrome, his lover and friends left him for fear of the deadly disease, leaving Rios feeling abandoned and confused.

“Finally, I realized I had to deal with this,” he said. So he called the All Saints AIDS Service Center in Pasadena and found counseling and encouragement.

The center offers a wide range of free services, including support groups for people with AIDS, their families and friends.

In addition, the center has started a case management program to help people with AIDS cut through bureaucratic red-tape to ensure that treatment is being handled properly.

Case managers will meet with patients at least once a week to ensure that such needs as home health care, hospice care, medication, insurance benefits, financial aid, counseling and emotional support are being provided.

The idea is to have each case manager closely monitor how those with AIDS are being treated. They are to make referrals to lawyers, counselors and doctors, and find volunteers who will help with household chores or provide transportation.

$380,000 Grant

As a result of such programs, the center received $380,000 this month from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a private foundation founded by medical supply entrepreneur Robert Wood Johnson.

The Princeton, N.J.-based foundation awarded more than $16 million to 54 organizations that provide education and care for AIDS victims, said foundation spokesman Denise Graveline. The 54 organizations were chosen from 1,000 applicants nationwide.

The Pasadena center has grown quickly since forming in 1986 as a group of volunteers at All Saints Episcopal Church answering an AIDS telephone help-line. A few months later, the first support group was organized.

In January, the center became an independent, nonprofit organization supported by donations from community and church groups. In June, the center received a state grant of $132,000 and moved its offices into the Pasadena YWCA building.

The center now serves residents of the western San Gabriel Valley in an area bounded by Glendale, Duarte, La Canada-Flintridge and Alhambra. Within that area, there have been 700 reported cases of AIDS since 1981, said the Rev. Albert Ogle, the center’s executive director.

About 100 people, including the relatives and friends of AIDS victims, are now receiving some form of assistance or support from the center.

By the end of next year, the center hopes to have helped 250 people receive benefits and treatment from such institutions as insurance companies, government agencies and hospitals. “The important goal is that the existing health-care system in this area absorb people with AIDS,” Ogle said.

The case management program is the newest service offered by the center.

So far, only one case manager has been hired, but the center hopes to add three more in the next few months. There are now 15 patients in the program. Each case manager eventually will be expected to supervise 40 people with AIDS, Ogle said.

The work of case managers is “very, very demanding,” Ogle said. “The case manager becomes the key person the family would work with,” he said.

Such a position is needed because of a sometimes insensitive bureaucracy, said Connie McCleary, the center’s mental health director. She told of two patients who had trouble receiving Social Security and Medi-Cal benefits because of bureaucratic mistakes.

Ogle recalled an AIDS patient saying, “It’s not AIDS that kills you, it’s the health-care system.”

Some health-care professionals don’t want to treat AIDS patients because they are afraid of catching the disease, Ogle said. Others are insensitive.

For example, Rios had to have one of his legs amputated in July because of complications indirectly caused by AIDS. He said that while recuperating from the operation a nurse said, “You know why you have AIDS don’t you? Because you’re a homosexual and God is punishing you.”

Later, Ogle complained to a hospital administrator and the nurse, a temporary worker, was assigned to another facility, Rios said.

The center has taken a broad approach to serving people with AIDS by providing a variety of services.

“They are really developing a regional approach for their neck of the woods,” said Stan Hadden, chairman of the California AIDS Advisory Committee. Patients can go to the center to get help for all of their needs, he said.

The center also helps the family of a person with AIDS, McCleary said.

A 41-year-old father of a Covina family sought help at the center after he was diagnosed with AIDS, she said. The father, as well as his two teen-age sons, received counseling.

The center also gave money to the family to help them make mortgage payments, McCleary said. A center representative explained to one of the son’s teachers that the youth’s grades had dropped because he was upset by his father’s illness.

The center has support groups for people with AIDS, the families and friends of AIDS victims, Spanish-speaking people and people who lost loved ones to AIDS.

Rios leads the Spanish-speaking support group.

Many Hispanics don’t want to attend support groups because seeking counseling is a sign of weakness in the Latin culture, he said. But Rios is not deterred and continues to lead three other Spanish-speaking support groups for organizations outside of the center.

Rios still can care for himself despite the disease. “I’ve really done well with this the last couple of years,” he said. But there may be a time, he said, when he may need all of the center’s services.