Pubdate: Mon, 26 Mar 2001
Source: Sudbury Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2001 The Sudbury Star
Contact:  33 MacKenzie St, Sudbury, Ont., P3C 4Y1
Fax: (705) 674-6834
Website: http://www.thesudburystar.com
Author: Craig Gilbert

JUST 'DON'T GIVE UP,' AIDS CONFERENCE TOLD

Poverty, drug abuse and HIV/AIDS transmission go hand in hand in 
Vancouver's downtown east side, say two registered nurses who work on the 
streets there.

Susan Giles and Evanna Brennan work the streets of "Canada's poorest 
neighbourhood" everyday.

They work in the home-care nursing program for the Vancouver Richmond 
Health Board. Since most of the people the two nurses see live in hotels or 
on the street, they're constantly moving from place to place in the area.

Giles and Brennan gave the keynote address in Sudbury last week and a 
multi-media presentation as part of the Opening Doors conference. Their 
presentation centred on not giving up on HIV-positive people, and how to 
manage intravenous drug users on a day-to-day basis. "They're a very 
special population," Brennan said. "They're different and it's a day-to-day 
grind."

Giles said taking a pragmatic approach, rather than simply saying "you're 
an addict, there's nothing I can do for you, get off the drugs," is 
something they focused on in their work, and in their presentation.

"Well, most of our guys aren't going to get off the drugs, unfortunately," 
Giles said. "But we sort of found, well, there is something you can do, by 
not giving up, and by taking a very pragmatic approach ... so you can help 
someone to manage their HIV."

We have to often run around the hotels and bars and what have you to find 
people," Brennan said."It's pretty much the most-open drug scene, probably, 
in Canada," Giles said. "There's pretty much open shooting up of cocaine 
and heroin on the streets, and busing and selling of it, too. It's very 
cheap there. There's a very high rate of HIV infection."
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