Newspaper Page Text
Serving the Lesbian & Qay Community
Athmta's
Editorials: 2
Introducing the 'New News;
The Violence Issue
Community Calendar 4
Community Resource Directory 5
Ronald Reagan, with less than half a year
to go, dodges the AIDS issue for
what may be last time.
See page 10
HIV: The Virus of
A Thousand Faces
Seepage 8
The Conventions and Primary are history.
What next for the gay vote?
See page 3
The Atlanta Gay Center Clinic may serve a different clientele from many other
health facilities in Georgia, but all facilities are supposed to observe the same State
policies regarding patient confidentiality and anonymity.
When a visitor enters the Atlanta Gay Center for the
Clinic (on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday nights, 6-9
pm) he or she is welcomed by the receptionist and given
information and a number for service, like taking a
number in many kinds of establishments.
When the patient's numbers are called, they talk
with a counselor who takes down the following infor
mation: age, race, risk group, zip code, and sex. Names
are neither asked for nor accepted if offered.
. Patients are then given risk reduction information
and given a 4-digit HIV number they'll use later to get
their test results. Then the blood is drawn and the
patient leaves.
Two weeks later, patients call to see if their results
are in, and if they are, they must return to the Clinic to
get the results—they are not given out over the tele
phone.
At the Clinic, patients take a number and when the
number is called, they are given test results by a coun
selor. If the result is positive, they are counseled on the
meaning of the test results, and offered a chance to talk
with a counselor from PLUS, the Center's large support
group for people with positive test results, and a chance
to attend the PLUS meetings on Friday.
During all this time, patients are not asked for name
or address information.
Not only is anonymity State policy; it's what the
patients want:
* "Anonymity is far and away the number one con
cern of our clients," says Richard Swanson, AGC Ad
ministrator. "It's our top priority, too. If you start taking
names, people won't be tested. It's that simple."
"Knowing your antibody status—positive or nega
tive—is for most people an important motivator for
choosing safer sex. And it's essential that people be able
to get that information when they want it."
CobbI Douglas stop
asking names for HIV
testing
More than six hundred Cobb and Douglas county
persons were required to given their names and ad
dresses when requesting supposedly anonymous HIV
antibody tests between July 1987 and late August of this
year when the State put a stop to the practice.
"What they're doing is directly against our policy,"
said Dr. James Alley, Director of the State Division of
Public Health, when told about the forms by a reporter
for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "We just can't allow
our anonymous test sites to be compromised."
Initially, the District Health Director for Cobb and
Douglas Counties, Dr. Elton S. Osborne, said he would
do as Alley said and destroy existing forms, which were
kept in a safe at the Cobb County Health Department.
But Osborne said he would continue to have new pa
tients fill out the forms.
"I will override that," said Dr. Alley, "Dr. Osborne
is an employee of the Department of Human Re
sources."
"Dr. Alley knows his business," says Richard
Swanson, Atlanta Gay Center Administrator. "He
knows the statistics. And he knows that AIDS can only
flourish in a climate of ignorance, fear and suspicion."
'The screening program will be a miserable and
disastrous failure if people are frightened away by
threat of disclosure. Thank God Dr. Alley recognizes
that," said Swanson.
ACT UP
Challenges
Circle K,
AZT Cutoff
See page O
A (Publication of the
Atlanta Qay Center
If you have encountered any additional breaches of confidentiality in health facilities under state or
county jurisdiction in the State of Georgia, Dr. Alley of the Department of Human Resources has dem
onstrated a determination to act. Contact him with any such information at this address:
Dr. James W. Alley, M.D-, M.P.H.
Director, Division of Public Health
Department of Human Resources
878 Peachtree Street, Room 201
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
(404) 894-7505.
September 14, 1988
vol. IV, no. 12