Health News
2006-03-04
L.A.’s
Carl Bean House closes
Budget cuts force
closure of 24-hour HIV nursing care facility.
Los
Angeles’s Carl Bean House, a
Los
Angeles’s Carl Bean House, a 24-hour HIV nursing care
facility, has been closed due to funding cuts by the
county’s board of supervisors. The AIDS
Healthcare Foundation, which managed the Carl Bean House
plus 10 other HIV clinics in Southern California, was
forced to shutter the facility after county
supervisors voted to slash funding for the nursing
care center to $550,000, down from more than $1.7 million
one year ago. The Carl Bean House, which opened in
1992, served primarily HIV-positive African-American
and Latino Los Angeles residents.
“I am
truly saddened to announce that we are forced to close Carl
Bean House,” AIDS Healthcare Foundation
president Michael Weinstein said in a press statement.
“I am also stunned by the shocking indifference and
denial displayed by the supervisors who are sending the
wrong message at the completely wrong time. The board
is turning their backs on their most vulnerable
constituents.”
Officials with
the Carl Bean House are working to place its patients with
other AIDS service groups in the city. The AIDS Healthcare
Foundation also says it is working to reassign the 45
Carl Bean staff members to other foundation clinics in
the area but anticipates that some of the workers will
be laid off.
The facility that
houses the Carl Bean House is home as well to the Magic
Johnson Healthcare Center, also managed by the AIDS
Healthcare Foundation. The future of that clinic is
still uncertain, said foundation officials.
(Advocate.com)
Click here to follow The Advocate on Twitter.
Page 1 of 1