WOMEN LIVING LONG TERM WITH HIV

By Shadawn McCants Imagine a young African American woman in her early twenties going to her local health department’s STI testing and treatment center. Her test results come back positive for chlamydia and syphilis, which require three rounds of antibiotics. She receives the  first and second treatments, but unfortunately, as tends to happen in Black communities, she doesn’t return for her final treatment. Now imagine, six months later, the city clinic advising her to come for a follow-up appointment. When this young woman makes it back to the clinic, the healthcare sta casually asks her if she is here to confirm her HIV results. Of course, she was shocked and scared. & This is, in fact, a very real situation. For six months, this clinic knew that the young woman had tested positive for HIV and never informed her that she should be tested again.  Then, there were discrepancies in the initial test and two consecutive confirmatory tests. Fortunately, this is where I stepped in two years ago to help her begin to navigate the complex emotions and decisions for her care that followed. & This is just another glaring reminder of a much larger issue that plagues Black communities,...