Monday, May 22, 2006
City-run medical clinics would no longer require written permission and counseling sessions before testing people for HIV in a bid to raise the number of people screened for the virus, officials said Wednesday.
The city, at the forefront of the AIDS fight, becomes the primary known entity in the U.S. to formally release consent and counseling requirements. The new policy was implemented Tuesday in the city clinics and two hospitals that test patients. Last year, 242 people tested positive out of the 6,500 tested in San Francisco.
The federal Centers for Disease manage and Prevention is contemplating making alike recommendations. The aim is to expand trying to find as many as 252,000 of the 1 million Americans with HIV who don't know they are infected and are most accountable for the spread of the virus.
San Francisco doctors would now be necessary to get only verbal patient permission for testing, lessening paperwork and burdensome bureaucracy.
"We hope others follow this ordinary sense approach," said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, director of the city's sexually transmitted disease prevention.
"Unfortunately, HIV follows women of color and HIV follows poverty," said Diana Bruce of the Washington-based AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families.
"This population needs testing that is culturally competent, that builds their trust," and of which they have been informed in writing.
The city's General Hospital "has provided model care for HIV throughout the epidemic and I trust them to building good decisions about these changes," Van Gorder said in an e-mail.
The city, at the forefront of the AIDS fight, becomes the primary known entity in the U.S. to formally release consent and counseling requirements. The new policy was implemented Tuesday in the city clinics and two hospitals that test patients. Last year, 242 people tested positive out of the 6,500 tested in San Francisco.
The federal Centers for Disease manage and Prevention is contemplating making alike recommendations. The aim is to expand trying to find as many as 252,000 of the 1 million Americans with HIV who don't know they are infected and are most accountable for the spread of the virus.
San Francisco doctors would now be necessary to get only verbal patient permission for testing, lessening paperwork and burdensome bureaucracy.
"We hope others follow this ordinary sense approach," said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, director of the city's sexually transmitted disease prevention.
"Unfortunately, HIV follows women of color and HIV follows poverty," said Diana Bruce of the Washington-based AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families.
"This population needs testing that is culturally competent, that builds their trust," and of which they have been informed in writing.
The city's General Hospital "has provided model care for HIV throughout the epidemic and I trust them to building good decisions about these changes," Van Gorder said in an e-mail.
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