Nearly 100 community-based organizations across the country – including one in Ohio – have been left scrambling with the Trump administration’s latest announcement that they will not be renewing their HIV prevention funding.
According to published reports, the White House will be pulling $46 million from these organizations in critical HIV care, which includes HIV testing, referrals to care and access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that is 99% effective at reducing the risk of getting HIV.
Instead of funding the organizations that have been on the frontlines providing HIV care and building relationships with HIV-affected communities, the money will now be re-routed to local and state health departments.
“The Trump administration is once again playing with fire as it tampers with essential healthcare funding that allows experienced and effective community-based organizations to meet the needs of their communities,” says Jeremiah Johnson, executive director of PrEP4All and co-founder of the Save HIV Funding campaign.
There is one Ohio organization among the 96 who will lose this funding stream: Equitas Health, a statewide community healthcare system.
Rhea Debussy, director of external affairs for Equitas, said that this shift in funding away from the organizations that have been providing these HIV-related services could have dire effects.
“The White House is disregarding the expertise of community-based organizations, which sets the stage for an increase in new HIV transmissions in some of the hardest-hit areas of the country,” Debussy told The Buckeye Flame.
Debussy said that Equitas will continue to partner with state and local health departments to sustain as much of the current HIV-prevention work as possible, as the stakes are too great not to do so.
“These life-saving services are crucial to ending the HIV epidemic in the Buckeye State and beyond,” said Debussy.
Johnson warned that if the funding stream to community-based organizations is too drastically altered, many local services will have to shut down or terminate staff in areas where resources are already limited.
“This will increase new HIV cases, resulting in higher human and financial costs to individuals, families and communities nationwide,” Johnson said.
The cuts were “certainly a disruption and shocking” for organizations, said Lita Willis, the Cleveland Department of Health’s health equity and social justice commissioner.
“I don’t think it’s the right move to destabilize services that have been in place for years and those community relationships,” Willis said.
There’s not much information currently on how the funding would disseminate. If CDPH received a large chunk of the Ohio funds, Willis said, it could help restore capacity to STI prevention and education services that she said have been reduced over the past decade. This could include adding the ability for the department’s mobile health units to test for HIV and hire HIV/AIDS specialists and additional testing staff.
However, she said CDPH would also route some of that funding back to partners like Equitas Health.
“The reason why we partner with community agencies in the first place is because a lot of times they can do part of the work that is more difficult for a government entity to do,” she said. “When it comes to reaching specific populations, [that work is] better suited for community partners.”
Ohio Department of Health was not able to provide comment to The Buckeye Flame before publication. 🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- To find a Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program medical provider in your area, click here.
Know an LGBTQ+ Ohio story we should cover? TELL US!
Submit a story!
