A recent grant has allowed a Charlottesville HIV/AIDS advocacy group to expand its efforts to provide care to impacted inmates in Virginia prisons.
The AIDS/HIV Services Group in Charlottesville, Virginia has been working for the past 25 years to increase awareness for HIV and AIDS and to help those affected to live healthier and more stable lives.
ASG originated as a volunteer-based non-profit that worked to help those affected by HIV to die with dignity. Today, with technological advances at the Center of Disease Control and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, ASG is able to provide a professional staff to assist with medical, social and mental quality of life issues. With $25,000 of increased funding from Viiv, a global health care company, ASG plans to expand its efforts to prisons, helping inmates who are affected by HIV smoothly reintegrate into society.
“Living with HIV compounds all of the problems that average inmates would have,” ASG Chief Executive Officer Peter DeMartino said.
With the grant funding, ASG will be able to provide a professional staff to test prisoners for HIV while also assisting the affected inmates in setting up health care plans and appointments, obtaining employment, accessing housing and transportation and receiving mental health care — a particularly important aspect of reintegration into society, especially for inmates affected by HIV. Incarceration can already foster depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which would only be compounded by HIV positive status.
“It’s important that we provide the important support that they need,” DeMartino said.
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