As NPR’s Lisa Hagen reports, Atlanta finds itself the number five ranked city when it comes to new diagnoses of HIV — a statistic that is rooted in HIV testing not being offered in places where most people get access to health care. Moreover, this has spurred nearly one-third of those diagnosed having clinical AIDS. Grady Hospital has only started its routine testing program in 2013, but as Hagen notes, an average of two to three patients are diagnosed with HIV each day of the week.
Dr. Abigal Hankin-Wei said: “This is something that keeps me awake at night in Atlanta. When we diagnose patients with HIV, the first time we are telling them they’ve been infected with HIV, we know that among our patients at Grady, nearly half of them have AIDS the day we diagnose them.”
Grady Hospital is the only emergency department in Atlanta that offers an HIV test to every patient regardless of why they are in need of care. Part of that speaks to Georgia’s Republican Governor Nathan Deal refusing to expand Medicaid in the state, which put poorer hospitals at risk and also meant that more than half a million poorer Georgia residents would go without healthcare. At the time, Deal complained that Georgia couldn’t afford the expansion.
Can Georgia afford this sort of health crisis?