Public, Private Pledges Needed to Get Washington, D.C.-Based HIV/AIDS Clinic Out of Financial Crisis, Editorial Says

Donations to the Washington, D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Clinic, the region's oldest and largest provider of services for HIV-positive people, are "welcome and needed" to bring the clinic out of a "life-threatening financial crisis," a Washington Post editorial says. Donations and federal grants to the clinic took a "nose-dive" after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but the drop in funding "did not ... stop either the AIDS epidemic or people -- increasingly black, poor and female -- from turning to Whitman-Walker in rising numbers," the editorial says. "It didn't help" that the District of Columbia Department of Health and the housing agency of Prince George's County, Md., "were deadbeats," owing the clinic more than $700,000 in services provided months earlier, according to Post. A proposed $500,000 donation from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield could help keep the clinic "afloat," but "[g]reater generosity from local governments, philanthropic and civic groups and individuals even now would limit the damage and allow the clinic to do more," the Post says (Washington Post, 6/11).

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