Public Employee Press

The de Blasio transition
Bloomberg's goodbye
Yanked $600,000 from clinics

Thirty-four years after doctors first identified AIDS, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, it has no cure. New York City is the epicenter of the disease, with the nation's largest concentration of people, some 100,000, diagnosed with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS.

Yet to save $600,000, the Bloomberg administration axed the hours of operation for Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene's Sexually Transmitted Diseases clinics.

"Mayor Bloomberg's cuts reduced services and limited access to diagnoses and treatment, which puts New Yorkers' health in jeopardy and asks the workers to do more with less," said Local 768 President Fitz Reid.

The Richmond STD clinic on Staten Island is open one day a week and the Chelsea clinic will no longer hold late-night HIV testing. Starting Jan. 6, the STD clinics in Chelsea, Central Harlem, Jamaica, Queens and Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, will close Mondays, operating instead from Tuesdays through Saturdays, and the Morrisania and Manhattanville clinics will close on Saturdays.

DC 37 members in locals 371, 436, 768 and 1549 comprise a corps of public health-care workers on the frontlines at DOH's eight STD clinics. They help test, counsel and treat people with HIV, syphilis, often a precursor of AIDS, and other STDs.

HIV is on the rise. According to the DOH, nationally, people under 30 accounted for 41 percent of new infections; among black New Yorkers, those under age 30 accounted for nearly half. DOH clinics each see more than 350 clients daily or almost 100,000 a year.

The new schedules limit New Yorkers' access to prevention, early testing and diagnoses, and treatment. For many STD clinic workers, the changes mean arranging and paying for Saturday day care for their children, adjusting to longer commutes and uprooting their personal and religious lives. Some workers have already filed for hardship transfers.

— Diane S. Williams