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ASOs Begin Talks to Settle Differences
by Barbara Dozetos
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| (Foreground right to left) Rob Larabee, of the Vermont People With AIDS Coalition, Deb Kutzko from the Comprehensive Care Clinics, and Susan Bell, Director of Brattleboro Area AIDS Project joined more than 50 people who attended AIDS Awareness Day at the Statehouse on February 16. All three were also in attendance at the colaboration meeting between the ASOs and other care givers in South Royalton earlier in the month. Photo: Barbara Dozetos |
Staff and board members of Vermont’s AIDS Service Organizations and other agencies that provide care to people living with HIV and AIDS met last month to start working out their differences.
The so-called collaboration meeting, held February 10 in South Royalton, was a first step in working out philosophical disagreements that have plagued the groups — sometimes boiling over into public feuds — for more than a year.
The group included representatives from the Brattleboro Area AIDS Project, Vermont CARES, AIDS Community Resource Network, Vermont People With AIDS Coalition, Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, Twin States Women’s Network, and the Comprehensive Care Clinics, and their expectations were varied going into the meeting.
“I wanted a commitment from everyone at the table,” said Susan Bell, BAAP executive director, “that we all had a common interest — the well-being of people living with HIV — and that common interest transcends any issues of money, power, control.”
Vermont CARES executive director Tim Palmer said he tried to go without preconceptions. “I was hopeful that we could find a way of making sure that whatever arrangement we could develop would have people living with the virus as the key decision makers,” he said.
He and other CARES representatives expressed concerns with the make-up and operation of the AIDS Care Consortium, an organization intended to balance the interests of the Vermont Health Department and HIV/AIDS consumers in the state.
They asked that 51 percent of the Consortium board be HIV-positive, that board members with conflicts of interest due to fiduciary responsibilities in their own organizations not be in voting positions, and that the balance of the board be case workers or other people who work closely with people living with the virus.
Palmer said the next step seems to be the next Consortium meeting on March 9, and that he will encourage HIV-positive individuals to attend.
Although tangible progress was slight, delegates were pleased to have gotten issues out in the open and seemed generally optimistic about the direction of talks.
Deb Kutzko of the Comprehensive Care Clinics called the meeting a first step toward a resolution. She said she hoped the VPWAC would convene another collaboration meeting, aside from the scheduled Consortium meeting, in order to keep the dialogue going.
“We just need to keep talking,” said Kutzko.
Bell agreed.
“There were disagreements here,” she said, “but at least there was a table."