When Paul Groesbeck became executive director of the Life Foundation in 1992, the HIV and AIDS treatment and prevention organization was working with 306 patients — and a year later about 100 of them had died.
"It was kind of horrific," Groesbeck recalled.
Now, Life Foundation is working with about 700 HIV-positive patients, and the treatment of AIDS has come a long way from the disease’s peak in the mid-1990s as the No. 1 killer of Americans age 25 to 44.
Even so, Groesbeck said it’s important for people not to become complacent and engage in risky behavior.
"It’s still nasty," he said.
The Life Foundation, Hawaii’s oldest AIDS organization, teamed up with the Department of Health and other community advocate groups Thursday to offer information and free HIV testing at several locations around Oahu in observance of National HIV Testing Day.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1.1 million people in the United States are living with the human immunodeficiency virus, and nearly 1 in 5 people with the virus are unaware they have it. The agency estimates that 2,025 to 3,193 Hawaii residents are HIV-positive.
The Life Foundation says increasing awareness of testing in the islands is important because more than two-thirds of Native Hawaiians, Asians and Pacific Islanders have never been tested, and 1 in 3 people in that demographic living with the disease are unaware that they have it.
Groesbeck estimated that about 200 to 300 people were tested Thursday.
"A lot of diseases have been prevented by public health and not by medicine," he said. "It’s, at the end of the day, a health issue and not a moral issue."
Groesbeck said nurses with the nonprofit often go to Nanakuli and Waianae and set up sign-free stations on the beach where people can be tested or have blood drawn. "I remember hearing about people, you know, we put up a poster like outside of a grocery store or something out in Waianae, and somebody’d be looking at it and some other people that know him say, ‘Why you reading that? You gay?’" he said.
Dr. Dominic Chow, a physician and an associate professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, agreed. "Native Hawaiians, they seek care the latest," said Chow, who also works with the Clint Spencer HIV/AIDS Clinic. "And so I think, again, the whole issue has been trying to find these individuals."
The clinic recently moved from Leahi Hospital to 677 Ala Moana Blvd., the building housing the Life Foundation.
Groesbeck recalled a local male who came in for testing in 1997 and wound up in the emergency room in 2008 for another condition.
"As (they) were treating that, he was showing indication of late-stage AIDS … and they referred him to us for case management, but he never made it out of the hospital," he said. "So he died of shame, essentially, and we’ve seen that all too often."
Chow said he hopes Thursday’s awareness campaign will lead to more diagnoses as well as prevention.
"In the 1980s HIV was basically a death sentence, and there was no treatment," Chow said. "The treatment is so effective now, and we can dramatically reduce the morbidity and mortality of patients. … Nowadays people can live healthy, productive lives, and we have patients who are in their 80s."
Chow added that patients treated to reduce the presence of the virus in their bodies are also less likely to pass it on to others.
"Most of our patients, once they learn their diagnosis of HIV, their behavior changes because they don’t want to actually give the illness to anyone else," he said. "But if you didn’t know, you won’t be able to consider changing your behavior."
The state Department of Health recommends that everyone from age 14 to 64 have an HIV test. Free, confidental testing is done on Oahu at the Diamond Head Health Center, 3627 Kilauea Ave. For information and to find out where else to be tested for free, visit lifefoundationorg.ipage.com or call 521-AIDS (521-2437).
