Close to 400 people in Rowan County have HIV, the virus that eventually leads to AIDS. Yet they must go to Charlotte, Winston-Salem or Chapel Hill for help.
Advocates said Tuesday that they’d like to see a local clinic for those who have contracted the life-threatening virus.
“I was a bit surprised to find out Rowan County doesn’t have one,” said Dr. Joseph Jemsek, who opened his own clinic last year in Huntersville.
Jemsek addressed a crowd of 100 nurses, doctors and others at a meeting sponsored by the Rowan County AIDS Task Force. Health care providers from Piedmont Correctional Institute, Rowan County Department of Social Services and other agencies gathered to discuss the disease.
Audrey Belk, manager of Rowan Regional Home Health and Hospice, said many local residents must travel an hour for help. Local primary care physicians can diagnose HIV, but they can’t prescribe treatment.
“We’d like very much to have an infectious disease doctor here,” Belk said. “Discussion is going on.”
The number of HIV-positive Rowan County residents has continued to increase in recent years — especially among blacks.
Ben Thayer, chairman of the Rowan County AIDS Task Force, said many local HIV-positive residents go without help because they can’t afford to travel.
“For many of them to see a doctor, we have to pay them for transportation or they won’t go,” he said.
The Rev. Marvin Lindsey, the pastor at John Calvin Presbyterian Church, works for the Charlotte-based Regional AIDS Interfaith Network, a volunteer organization.
“The lack of someone locally makes it especially hard for poor people, because there is a high correlation between poverty and HIV,” he said. “There are transportation services available, but we don’t know how many people are aware of those services.
“... I think we do have the caseload now to get somebody here.”
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