"Officials Cite Increase in AIDS Patients Who Delay Treatment"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

"Officials Cite Increase in AIDS Patients Who Delay Treatment"

Washington Post (12/22/92), P. D3
Greene, Marcia Slacum

Abstract: There has been a sharp increase in new AIDS patients who already have symptoms when they receive treatment for the first time, according to officials from the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. Some are even so ill that they must be sent directly to hospital emergency rooms. Health officials say that AIDS patients may be postponing treatment for several reasons including lack of insurance, denial, or unwarranted hopelessness. Peter Hawley, the clinic's medical director, said, "We can extend people's lives by a couple of years if we see them early. If we see them late, there may not be anything we can do for them. It's alarming to see so many people wait until they're sick." Blood tests conducted in fiscal 1992 for the clinic's 818 new patients showed that 39 percent of them had fewer than 200 T-cells compared with 18.9 of the new patients in fiscal 1991. D.C. General Hospital's center for AIDS patients is also witnessing an increase in new patients with lower T-cell counts. Director Dolph Druckman projected that 40 percent to 50 percent of the center's 240 new patients last year had T-cell counts below 200. Whitman Walker's patients were mostly gay men in the early 1980s. In fiscal 1992, which ended in September, the clinic experienced an increase in heterosexual patients, IV-drug users, women, and minorities. Also, more than half of the patients were not covered under health insurance, compared with fewer than one-fourth of its patients in the early 1980s. Whitman-Walker Director Jim Graham said the growing number of patients delaying treatment is a result, in large part, to the ineffectiveness of AIDS education efforts.

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