Aim HI Clinic Plan

The Need for the Clinic:

• There are currently NO HIV Testing or weekend support services in the UK.
• Since 2002, Appointment times for GUM services have remained the same. The median time to first appointment lengthened to 12 working days for men and 14 working days for women, compared with 5 and 6 days in 2000, when the House of Commons first expressed concern.
• The number of new patient appointments attending GU Medicine clinics each week was around 15,000 in 2002. Patient waiting times are unacceptably long, with the number of new patients now in excess of 40,000 every week. Delays for urgent cases are more likely to affect the young, and other marginalized groups.
• Preventing a single onward transmission of HIV/AIDS is estimated at somewhere between £500,000 and £1 million in individual health benefits and treatment costs.
• A young person is infected with HIV every 14 seconds, with half of all new infections aged under 25 (around 6,000 people every day according to the United Nations Population Fund).

GUM services have responded by offering HIV/STI services beyond the sometimes inaccessible, Mon-Friday 9-5 opening hours. Services are available for testing in the evening in sites across London. However, there are currently no testing services available in the UK over the course of the weekend. HIV-positive teenagers are notoriously much less likely than adults to access specialist medical services after testing for HIV even though they have high rates of psychiatric illness and STI’s. Young HIV positive people are also more likely to miss medication and therefore develop HIV drug resistance without supportive services.

According to research published in the Journal AIDS (24 January 2003 edition), teenagers were found to be not returning for their HIV test results “and therefore remained unaware of their HIV status.” Estimates suggest that one in three people infected with HIV are unaware of their diagnosis - 10,000 in the London area. Typically diagnoses of HIV are often made late in the course of the infection impacting the patients’ benefit from modern combination anti-retrovirals and fuelling further HIV infections.

Downloadable Documents

• Donation Form
  Please download this form if you would like to make a donation to Health Initiatives. Every donation is much appreciated and helps us to do more great work with young people with HIV/AIDS!