Residents with AIDS: a comparison of facilities with experience and those without

there were a great number of concerns. The primary concern was could we care for this patient adequately. The fears of the staff, the fears of contracting the disease, the fear that we could lose staff because we had AIDS patients in our facility. The very real fear that other patients would leave the facility because we had an AIDS patient, financial concerns because these, very frankly, are costly folks to care for and the reimbursement is usually Medicaid which does not cover the cost. Those were the major problems. (Headley, 1993) As with most LTC, care for people with AIDS is largely provided through personal networks of family and friends. Yet, as with other chronic needs, there are people for whom informal caregiving network are not available, are not well enough developed to provide adequately, of become overwhelmed at the magnitude and duration of care that is sometimes required. These people must turn to the formal LTC system for the services that supplement of supplant informal efforts.