OUTLaw, a group of queer law students from six Chicago law schools, hosted a panel discussion,’HIV/AIDS in Urban America,’ April 1 at the Loyola University College of Law, 25 E. Pearson. Panelists were Ruqaiijah Yearby, an Assistant Professor at Loyola School of Law, Justin Hayward, Case Manager at AIDS Legal Council, and David Ernesto Munar, Vice President for Policy and Communications at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC).
Yearby talked about the critical issues facing urban patients with HIV/AIDS, chief among them the difficulty in accessing services. Populations already vulnerable due to factors like poverty and a lack of access to medical information suffer additionally from having to use HMOs that don’t maintain strong ties to the communities they’re supposed to serve. Yearby also touched upon the issue of funding for HIV/AIDS when she addressed the topic of recent budget cuts in Cook County. She stated that it was necessary to redirect money by, for instance, not defunding needle exchange programs.
Justin Hayward emphasized the difficulties that low-income patients face when they try to access services, as well as the continuing discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS. He spoke about instances where he had to deal with intractable medical staff and bureaucrats while trying to ensure that his clients received the assistance they needed. Medicaid’s strict definitions of poverty and disability are onerous and counter-productive: ‘Trying to just get in the door is astonishingly difficult.’ He pointed out that the process severely strained patients who are already too sick to begin with. Discrimination in the workplace or by medical providers is also an issue for many. While it’s illegal to fire people for having HIV/AIDS when their condition does not make them a direct threat, employers can make it difficult for people to continue in a workplace.
David Munar’s comments focused on AFC’s current campaigns for funding for HIV/AIDS. Munar also spoke about the Catch-22 situation that most Medicaid patients find themselves in: they’re usually on assistance when they’re too sick to fend for themselves. Funding treatment options earlier in the course of the disease would have kept them from dire situations. Munar emphasized the importance of early treatment and advocated for AFC-supported campaigns, like the one for Senate Bill 2155, that seeks to increase prescriptions of naloxone, a prescription drug that reverses the effects of drug overdoses.
OUTLaw consists of students from DePaul University College of Law, Northwestern University School of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, The Law School at The University of Chicago, The John Marshall Law School and Chicago-Kent College of Law.