Florida: Support Relieves Patients' Isolation

Central Florida Life Resources, in Eustis, opened earlier this year to help people with HIV/AIDS. State Health Department figures report that 75,697 people statewide have HIV/AIDS. Of those, the department estimates that -- in Lake County towns -- 314 people in Lake, 447 people in Marion, and 71 in Sumter have HIV/AIDS.

Founded by Kathryn Johnson, a mental-health therapist, the center offers case management, a food bank, mental-health counseling and free HIV testing in collaboration with Orlando AIDS service organizations. Funding comes from private donations and fundraising events, and volunteers staff the agency. The organization tries to educate the community and dispel myths about HIV/AIDS. The center helps Lake County residents find health-care providers, ways of paying for expensive medicines, and transportation.

Central Florida Life Resources helps ameliorate the pressure of finding help for HIV/AIDS in small Southern towns. "Whether you're talking about specialty medical care or social service care, it's not always available in smaller communities," said Kevin Lenhart, who oversees the Lake County Health Department's HIV program. "We've had people travel to Orlando and Gainesville for some of these services."

At the National HIV/AIDS Update Conference in March, a study by a director of the AIDS Institute and a CDC researcher reported that the number of people with HIV/AIDS has risen faster in the South than any other region. It suggested that small-town reluctance to discuss sex, sexual orientation and drug use hinders prevention efforts.

"This is not a big-city problem," said one heterosexual woman who has been living with AIDS since 1998 and is a client of the center. "All kinds of people are walking around with this. The community really needs to come together to fight it."

For information on Central Florida Life Resources, telephone 352-636-2004.

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