Currently services are provided by HIV/AIDS organizations that have operated for the last 10 to 20 years. In October on Vancouver Island where three agencies receive funding, they will be looking at bidding against other organizations to provide services on the Island.
An early casualty is the Mobile needle exchange in Victoria. The health Board has stated they will not fund the project after March 31, 2005.
Silent AIDS Protest Victoria BC
HIV/AIDS funding in BC has not increased since 1992. Agencies performing work in the community have been faced with growing costs with the same baseline funding.
See the following News report and background material.
Needle exchange teeters on the brink
Local AIDS groups struggle with provincial demands and paltry budgets
Our hands are tied
Vancouver Island Health Authority announces it will no longer fund needle exchange
2 comments:
One can only wonder....
Who will be the new Doug Walls on this one?
And four years from now, after programs have been goose-stepped out of existence, how much 'new' money will suddenly be put into the program.
And in the meantime, how many will suffer because of this crap.
The New Doug Walls,
Every health aurhority will have one. AIDS service organizations were reluctant to have their services transfered to health authorities for a couple of reasons.
The funding becomes that more distant from Victoria. We have seen for three years now the Liberals say they can not respond to health issues as the responsibility is the Health Authority's. That is a nice attempt to deflect "blame" for a lack of funding.
The second reason for not wanting to be within health authorities revolves around their interest in HIV/AIDS. They aren't interested, and with funding pressures, guess what will be cut?
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