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Film Captures Health Workers’ Role in Early Days of AIDS
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Abstract
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| A new 30-minute film tells the story of San Francisco health care workers who cared for the earliest AIDS patients and how their work continues to shape the delivery of HIV care today.
“Life Before the Lifeboat: San Francisco’s Courageous Response to the AIDS Outbreak,” features interviews with key health care workers, including Dr. Paul Volberding, then at San Francisco General Hospital.
“We must have learned lessons about ourselves and as a community in how we respond to challenges,” said Volberding, now at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
The film also dissects political tensions that emerged on how best to address the epidemic, particularly the question of whether to close the city’s bathhouses. The movie quotes the city’s public health director at the time suggesting that closing the bathhouses too quickly would be counter-productive.
“If we were seen as police rather than partners in their health care then we would lose the battle,” said Dr. Mervyn Silverman, who led the city’s public health department from 1977 to 1985.
The history of HIV offers valuable lessons for present-day health workers who are dealing with H1N1 and other communicable diseases, Volberding said.
“There has been talk in the influenza epidemic [if] it is OK for health care workers to refuse to take care of patients. That is like asking would it be OK for a fireman to refuse to enter a burning building. For me it brings some of that AIDS hysteria back.”
The movie will be screened during World AIDS Day events Dec. 1 and 2 at San Francisco General Hospital’s Carr Auditorium. The San Francisco General Hospital Foundation and the California HealthCare Foundation underwrote its $32,000 production cost. For more information, telephone 415-206-4478.
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Subjects
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Health Care Workers
Patient Care
Performing Arts
Persons with HIV/AIDS
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Disclaimer: NPIN provides this information as a public service only. The views and information provided about the materials, news, funding opportunities, organizations, and conferences do not necessarily state or reflect those of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, or NPIN.
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cdcnpin.org News Record #54327
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