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."