ADVOCATES PLEAD FOR BOOST TO AIDS FUNDS

The B.C. government's $4.1-billion surplus and 2010 Olympic spending
made it hard for AIDS activists and people living with the disease to
swallow the health authority's claims of budget constraints at a
meeting last night.

Mike Conroy, Vancouver Island Health Authority chief operating
officer, told about 40 people gathered at an AIDS Vancouver Island
Society annual general meeting in Victoria that there are "competing
priorities" for its $1.3 billion budget.

"The choices are extensive and the pressures are intensive," Conroy
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In a move to redistribute the health authority's $1.5-million budget
specifically marked for HIV programs to the north and central regions
where the need is greater, the south Island AIDS programs found
themselves $450,000 short this year.

"When we looked at our resources, we came to the difficult conclusion
that we could only enhance HIV/AIDS prevention and support services
in central and northern Vancouver Island by reallocating existing
funding from the south," Conroy said.

Funding has been frozen since 1992, said executive director Miki
Hansen. After protests, VIHA gave AIDS Vancouver Island transitional
money, but the agency ended its 2007 fiscal year with a $105,000
budget deficit.

"It makes no sense," Hansen said. "If there's a need for equity
across the Island, put more dollars in."

Andrew Beckerman, who is HIV-positive, said in a question and answer
session that he couldn't reconcile the health authority's money
crunch and the province's surplus and spending.

"The 2010 Olympics benefits almost no one but real estate
developers," Beckerman said. "Whereas, we have basic needs that need
to be met in this province to provide food and shelter."

He inquired how "frivolities" trump basic human rights.

"We have people hungry in this province, people living in the street
and as a person living with AIDS, I wonder why my life isn't valued,"
Beckerman said. He is financially sound, but spoke on behalf of those
who are not.

Outgoing executive director Miki Hansen stressed that AIDS Vancouver
Island, the Victoria AIDS Resource and Community Service Society and
the Vancouver Island Persons with AIDS Society will all be caught in
the potential 2008 funding crunch if transitional funding isn't
maintained or core funding increased.

"What we do, people really need," Hansen said.

AIDS Vancouver Island's Victoria needle exchange, serving 2,000
intravenous drug users, needs more than $250,000 for a new building
and support services.

And yet the needle exchange is just one of the ways AIDS Vancouver
Island works to stop HIV infection and helps people living with the
disease, she said.

"A lot of HIV-positive people never used a syringe, don't do drugs
and contracted HIV through other ways," she said.

Hansen passed the executive director's torch to Katrina Jensen, amid
heated budget negotiations between as VIHA and the AIDS agency.

"I'm hopeful VIHA will recognize how needed all these services are
and restore the funding," Jensen said. "We certainly are not going to
stop fighting."