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From May 6th to 8th, 2004 a group of Sisters serving in Health and Social Work from all the provinces of Spain, met in Ibarra (Guipuzcoa) for the first Inter-provincial AIDS Encounter.
Sister Carmen Perez, Provincial of San Sebastian, encouraged us to live out this service from a new perspective.
She recalled being near and with persons with AIDS as an answer to the urgent demands of society to respond to a need that neither families nor institutions have responded to. Likewise, she encouraged us to expand our services so as to offer them to those who are not hospitalized, as the evolution of the illness urges us to change where we provide care and to prepare people to live with their illness and its consequences.
This requires us to plan together our future presence with and for these people. Our vocation of service compels us to extend physical relief, moral support, listening, and maintaining their desire to live, in essence, proclaiming that God loves them as stated in our Constitutions and Statutes (Constitution 2.9).
After these words, Doctor Iribarren, Director of the Infectious Disease Unit at ‘Donostia Hospital’ in San Sebastian, enlightened us on the situation and problems of persons infected with HIV in our area. He provided a brief overview of the history of the illness stressing:
1. The influence of antiretroviral treatments that increase life expectancy and enhance quality of life.
2. The individual’s social reality, as well as the incidence of mental illnesses (significant in person with HIV/AIDS) in order to achieve an authentic improvement and effectiveness of treatments. He insisted on the need for true coordination of services especially among the various social/psychiatric services. He said that “the concept of social urgency is not well established in our consciences or in society.”
3. He underlined the importance, on the part of professionals, of being convinced of the effectiveness of treatments so they can encourage patients to adhere to them. The most negative and consequential decision you can make is to suspend treatment or not take them appropriately, as prescribed.
After an enjoyable lunch the session began with the report of Mrs. Ana Maria Sanz, psychologist at the ‘Welcome House Bietxea’. She spoke on the psychological and social profile of the person with AIDS
For the remainder of this extensive story visit
http://www.filles-de-la-charite.org/en/news.html#aids
