New Drugs Transform AIDS Cure; at Nursing Home, a Brighter Future

Protease inhibitors have vastly changed the role of Newark-based Broadway House, New Jersey's only state facility dedicated to AIDS patients. "It was a hospice," said Jim Gonzalez, who runs the home. "I'm told that Broadway House had five to 10 deaths a week," said Executive Director Jeanine Reilly, who joined the staff 18 months ago. "With protease inhibitors, it is about one death a week." Broadway House, whose building was once an insurance headquarters and later a school, has 60 beds and a waiting list.

"Now our job is to prepare [patients] to go back out into the community, prepare them for the long term," Reilly said. "Sixty-two percent of our patients do go back out into the community," reported Reilly. "They go to family, or to their own apartments, or sometimes to a group home or a non-specialized nursing home where care costs less than the $342 a day Medicaid allots for each Broadway House patient. . . . Most are drug addicts, and now we have a full-time drug abuse counselor. Our psychiatric services have increased dramatically. The minute a person comes here, a discharge plan is started. We never, ever kick anyone to the curb for any reason, but we start planning and training them."

Two weeks ago, the Newark school system opened a class at Broadway House to help patients study for the high school equivalency test; eight residents are being tutored. Last week, a professional kick-boxer began stretching and muscle-building classes for 25 patients to combat AIDS muscle-wasting. Reilly also helps her patients discover parts of mainstream life they may have missed. Most had never been to an amusement park -- until a recent group outing took them for a day of fun at Six Flags Great Adventure. "This is a wonderful place," Reilly said of Broadway House. "It has so much potential, and the rewards are just boundless. And we get to feel good about what we do."

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