From Stigma to Support: A Journey through HIV Social Services

Serving at Ampla Health my host site in Marysville as a Ryan White Care Coordinator for my term of service has shown me a new perspective of healthcare systems. I have learned a lot from the many projects I have worked on and learned what it takes to make sure patients are given the care they deserve. As I work with the clinical services team at my host site, I may not be going with the patients to doctors and hospital visits, but I am working behind the scenes to ensure patient safety and quality. 

I serve alongside the HIV department at my host site and have learned so much from my time here. From my time I have learned a lot about behind the scenes what people living with HIV must go through. Throughout my time here I learned about the hardships and barriers people living with HIV face when trying to take care of themselves. I have also learned about the stigmatism and prejudice people who are affected by HIV face and how they are treated differently because of it. At my host site, we provide people living with HIV with health services and social services. I work more with the social services side of care through the Ryan White Part B grant. Ryan White part B is non-medical care which provides people who have HIV services such as food vouchers, transportation vouchers in bus passes and gas cards, and even assistance in paying for rent and utilities. They are also able to enroll in ADAP which is a program helping cover the cost of HIV treatment. I help with these applications and upload them to patients’ charts, so they can fully receive these services. I have also helped with quality reports which are then turned in to the state so that we can continue to receive this grant to help people living with HIV with social services. 

Another project I have been working on is a needs assessment for people living with HIV in my community. This would help identify what services are available and still needed for people living with HIV. For this project so far, I have conducted focus groups in Yuba/Sutter County and Butte County. For these focus groups, I made calls to local community organizations that provide services for people living with HIV, the local health departments, and other healthcare centers asking them to join the focus group so I could gain a better understanding of the HIV services and challenges in the community. I was able to connect with other health facilities from different counties including providers, case managers, and public health workers, and ask questions that I thought were important such as “how can we get the conversation started about HIV and normalize HIV education?” and “how can we coordinate more between different organizations to fight this epidemic?”. I’m also able to talk with patients living with HIV and learn from them as well. When talking to patients I get to know them at a deeper level as they entrust with me sensitive information and share their experiences and the stigmatism, they have faced just for being diagnosed with HIV. I truly value this opportunity because from the patients I get to learn what challenges they are facing and learn what still needs to be fixed in the healthcare system so we normalize the conversation about HIV because just like any other disease this should not have any stigmatism or judgment around it.