Miami Herald, Tuesday, December 6, 1988
Jeff Truesdell, Herald Staff Writer

Here, among the cheap motels and broken sidewalks of Broadway, where harsh daylight contrasts with a seedy darkness that lingers and intimidates, Palm Beach County is establishing its beachhead against AIDS.

First came the clinic for treatment of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Then in October, Bob Grummons found a house on Broadway three blocks from the clinic and opened his food pantry for PWAs, or People With AIDS.

Last month the Comprehensive AIDS Program of Palm Beach County (CAP) moved to the same stretch of Broadway from its hard-to-find office in Lantana. And this week, next to the health clinic, a taxpayer-supported AIDS dental clinic opens with more than 70 people awaiting appointments.

For the many caught up locally in the epidemic, the concentration of services along three blocks on the north side of West Palm Beach provides a compassionate, tangible base for support. For Michael, who has AIDS, it is a convenience made better because it brings together the people who are eager and able to help.

"If I go down to the clinic," said the 35-year-old father, a resident of Hope House in Lantana, "I can go to the food pantry, and then I can go by CAP and say hello."

And he can do it in one trip, a particular benefit to those who often must depend on volunteers for transportation. With services now so handy, the advisory board of Hope House -- an eight-bed AIDS center -- wants to relocate to the area as well. "It would just be more convenient," Michael said.

"Proximity is always useful," said AIDS clinic director Dr. Ron Wiewora. "They can get everything -- medical, dental, psychological, social and food needs -- all in the same area."

It also takes care of the needy. "Quite a number of our clients live in that area," said CAP director Shaun Dunn.

AIDS has been diagnosed in 260 current county residents. Another 445 have died, records maintained by the county health department since 1982 show. And those numbers don't count HIV-positive persons, those who have been exposed to the AIDS virus and could develop it.

AIDS collapses the immune system. It is passed primarily through blood products or intimate sexual contacts. Thus, concern about its contagiousness and a patient's susceptibility to other viruses keep many patients from being treated in standard, private settings.

"Many private practitioners aren't set up to have the blood and bodily fluid precautions that need to be taken with these patients," said Wiewora.

"Patients who are HIV-positive may still be healthy," said Dr. Robert Dumbaugh, the county dental director, "but they may require dental treatment. They can come here and be treated in the proper perspective."

Also, he said, "now that we have the medical and dental together, then side by side they can accomplish the total health management of the patient."

Care is not cheap. The precautions will push the dental bill to about $100 an hour -- a fee that an estimated one-third of the clients can pay. The rest will be charged on a sliding scale, though none will be refused, Dumbaugh said. State and county grants put the clinic on its feet.

By contrast, Grummons got his start with the help of local agencies. He offers free food to assist those knocked out of the wage-earning work place by AIDS' debilitating effects.

"It was important to me to have a spot near the clinic," said Grummons, 44, a Dairy Queen night manager who devoted himself to aiding the homeless, and then AIDS victims, after surviving an automobile accident two years ago.

He got the idea in May from an AIDS patient. Area AIDS agencies sponsored him, and Grummons began collecting and storing food in his dining room. When the boxes had obliterated one wall, CAP offered to donate $1,000 a month for expenses and Grummons moved his cupboard to Broadway.

Food, toiletries and paper goods are free to AIDS patients under a physician's care and those who must be referred by a participating agency. Goods come from churches and individuals; a food drive begun Sunday among area bars will help stock the shelves for the holidays. The phone number is 881-7179.

Sharing space with the pantry is the Coalition of PWAs, a support group whose monthly rent Grummons spends on subscriptions, tapes and reading matter on AIDS. In a back room of his pantry, he plans an AIDS library -- another attempt to bring the afflicted community closer.

"An AIDS patient can get a ride to the clinic, which means he can walk on over and get food from me," Grummons said. "With CAP moving in, it's like a blessing.

"Rather than being spread out all over the community," he said, "we have finally become a unit of one."

CAPTION: PHOTO Robert H. Dumbaugh (s), Robert Grummons with Richard Segrin (s)
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