Two weekends ago, my husband
and I stopped at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Barrie on our way up to
Hunstville for a weekend of cross country skiing. It was 12 noon and already 9 degrees Celsius. We sat at a table just inside the
window. The sun poured in over
us. I was casually watching people
pass by on the street.
There was an older woman who
to cross the street. She was disabled and stumbling with a cane. She had managed to weave her way across
two lanes of busy traffic but now she faced the snow bank which was a crusty 3
foot pile of ice and dirt. There
was no way she was going to make it.
I feel ashamed now but it didn’t even dawn on me that she might need help. Just then, our waitress, a lovely Latin
American woman in short sleeves and a bar tenders apron rushed out to the
street. It was a struggle even for her but she climbed the bank,
grabbed the woman’s arm and her cane and gently guided her over the bank.
No big deal right? We are women. We are wired to help those in need and
care for the most vulnerable right? This is just a typical example of an act of kindness, right?
But I was a mess. I was overcome with emotion: A knot in my throat, tears welling up
in my eyes, sniffling over my Dos Equis beer. Well isn’t this
embarrassing.
I looked over to a young man,
maybe in his early twenties sitting at the table beside us. He saw this ‘routine’ act of kindness
and his eyes were welling up too. Well, that just made me cry even
more. When did our world shift so
far away from caring for our fellow man ( or woman) that what was once a common
and expected act of compassion and dignity is now so rare that it makes us
grieve?
I am an AIDS activist and a
family doctor. In the last 10
years, I have taken on the responsibility of leading an energetic charge that
wants to see the end of AIDS not only in our country but in the tiny African
Kingdom of Lesotho, Africa.
In 1987, HIV was crushing populations in North
America. As a 22 year old, newly
married medical student, I was working with the infectious disease team at
Dalhousie University in Halifax. I
was actually standing in the room when the first patient in the country was
given the first dose of AZT, a new ante-viral medication that showed so much
promise and brought so much hope. But
it did not work.
His name was Chris.
I was
raised in Ingersoll and Woodstock Ontario. My father immigrated to Canada from Holland after WW2. He worked his way up from the bottom
rung at the Royal Bank of Canada to the manager of the Ingersoll and then the
Woodstock, downtown branch.
My mother was a home-maker of Italian descent. Her parents immigrated from Italy just before WW1. I am the youngest of five and the first
of many generations before me to make it to University.
This country was built by immigrants in the last century. They are a valuable to us:
a precious addition to our diverse country.
My father taught me to work hard and shoot for the
moon. My mother taught me to love
God and my fellow man. By the time
I met Chris, I had never witnessed a person who was the victim of such stigma
and fear. The nursing staff was
afraid of entering his room. His
meals were left on a tray in the hallway outside his door. Housekeeping refused to clean his
room. His family and his partner
had left him and here he was, alone and dying. I was desperate to understand how any human being could be
allowed to suffer so much. I spent
hours with Chris.
He inspired me to learn about AIDS.
Three years later, I opened my family practice in
Guelph. I took on 7 HIV positive
patients, all male, all very young and all dying of AIDS. HIV treating physicians at the time
were experts in palliative care.
We scrambled to treat our patients with medications that were not
effective. The disease was unrelenting. Patient’s died of infections their
immune systems could not overcome.
One infection settled into the back of the eye causing rapid
blindness. We would inject
patient’s eyes with an anti-viral in a desperate attempt to preserve their
vision. It was hell.
Then in 1996, a brilliant Canadian researcher came
up with a cocktail of medications:
three HIV medications taken by the handfuls, three times a day. The regimen was grueling and toxic but
I will never forget the day when hope hit.
Hand that cocktail to a dying patient and within weeks he was restored to
almost normal health. The weary
patients and their doctors were elated.
We called it, The Lazarus effect.
In 2000, all of the other HIV treating physicians
in this South Western Ontario retired or moved. They cared for sixty HIV positive patients. I was not equipped to care for more. I sat beside a colleague of mine at a conference. He was the director of the provincial
HIV/AIDS clinic in Windsor. He was
determined to convince me to build an AIDS clinic in Guelph. I dismissed him. Who has time for that. Several weeks later, I received an invitation
to attend the HIV/AIDS clinic directors Meeting at Queens park. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure where Queen’s
park was. I attended the meeting thinking it
might be good to learn how things run in the province. I would observe as a fly on the wall….so
to speak.
I sat beside my colleague around this big,
beautiful oak table. I was more
interested in the décor than the government dignitaries and directors around
the table. I looked down and saw my
name, first on the agenda. The next two hours were spent
discussing how the group was going to assist me in building the province’s 14th
HIV/AIDS clinic. I kicked my
friend under the table. There was
absolutely no way I was going to do this.
On the drive home, I was indignant but I felt a very strong
presence. I believe it was God,
and my mother who had passed away a couple of years before. How could I turn them down.
Lovely and long story short, 15 months later, we
opened the province’s 14th HIV/AIDS clinic in Guelph with a team of
amazing people who showed up to the first meeting I called. It was a miraculous community effort
with huge support from our local paper. There is now a satellite clinic in Waterloo. Both clinics are now called ARCH ( HIV
AIDS Resources and Community Health ) and together, the clinics provide care to
over 600 HIV positive patients in the region. Two years ago, we opened the regions first transgender
clinic. More that 100 babies have
been born through ARCH to HIV positive mothers, all of them HIV negative and
every family thriving.
The miracle of science and technology will end AIDS. Human beings are extremely smart, vastly intelligent. We have the capacity to address all of our global problems. Any government that dismisses Science should not be governing.
In 2007, that complicated HIV drug regimen of
handfuls of pills three times daily that was toxic and often deadly was
replaced with Atripla: three
combined medications in one pill given once a day.
By 2012, research showed that if you treat an HIV
positive person and reduce their viral load to undetectable levels, they virtually
cannot transmit the virus.
In 2013, stats showed the effectively treated HIV
positive person can live a normal life expectancy. Are you hearing this?
By 2016, there are 5 one pill once daily regimens
available that are so powerful they will easily keep people alive right until
the cure..
In 2017, we believe the cure for HIV is less than 5
years away. It will come in pill
form, not a vaccine. The WHO has
set new targets, the 90:90:90 treatment targets to the end of AIDS by 2030: 90% diagnosed, 90 % treated, 90% with
an undetectable Viral Load.
When you have successfully captured the energy and
effort of a community behind a great cause, keep them inspired. The world is desperate for inspiration
and hope. Shortly after opening
the clinic in Guelph, I listened to Stephen Lewis speak. At the time, he was the UN Secretary
General’s envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa….and he was broken. I sat there shocked. This beautiful and dignified orator and
statesman had seen the worst of humanity and he was broken.
It became clear to me, over the next few weeks,
after reading his book and many others, that I needed to respond to the AIDS pandemic in Africa.
Within months, I found myself working with a team
of Canadian doctors and nurse practitioners in the first HIV/AIDS clinic in
Lesotho, Africa built by the Ontario Hospital Association and within days…… I was
broken too.
Building AIDS clinics in Ontario was a piece of
cake. Treating hundreds of dying
men, women and children in an African Kingdom where 30 percent of the
population is HIV positive and 250,000 children are orphaned by AIDS was the
most exhilarating and the most devastating experience of my life.
Tuesdays were children’s day at this clinic in
Lesotho. It was here, in the
summer of 2006 that I met Letosa.
Eighteen months old, both parents dead, sitting on her grandmother’s lap
dying of AIDS and a suffocating pneumonia. She was so little, so frail, motionless, finished. I had seen this before just before
death but never in someone so young.
I held her tiny hand, looked at her sweet, sweet face and watched on as
she slipped away…..the victim of an preventable pandemic and a preventable
disease. She never stood a chance.
Lieutenant General Romeo Dellaire is another
beautiful and dignified statesman.
He witnessed the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. He writes extensively about his experiences in his book,
“Shake Hands with the Devil”. He
has written most recently about his battle with PTSD in his newest book,
“Waiting for first light”.
PTSD is devastating and I don’t think you ever
quite get past it.
After my first trip to Lesotho, I curled up in a fetal position and
suffered. You have a couple of
options once you’ve witnessed children dying of AIDS: You can take your crazy, mixed up emotions and shove them
someplace deep and safe, or you can rise up and fight back.
I challenged my community to keep up the good fight
and help me fight back.
Within two years and a stunning community effort,
Guelph raised $1 million for that first HIV/AIDS clinic in Lesotho, keeping
11,000 people alive throughout 2009 and all I had to do was ask them to respond.
Since then, the NGO we started that raised that
first million has raised close to $4 million. We call ourselves Bracelet of Hope and our goal is to end
the AIDS pandemic in Lesotho. Why? Because we can. We are in the process of building
another HIV clinic in the country.
We could use all the help we can get. Join us if you can.
When leaders stand up for what is right and good
and just, even leaders who may not yet know they are leaders, miracles happen. When broken people find the courage to
fight despite their pain and despite the obstacles, anything is possible,
anything can be accomplished.
I prescribe anti-depressants to teenagers everyday
because, in part, their world has gone absolutely mad. They believe their world is so dark and
their futures so bleak that they simply cannot cope.
What is special about us, on the dawn of
International Women’s day. is that when
women leaders stand up, families are restored,
communities thrive and futures are re-directed. Just like that beautiful, Latin American Waitress who
without a second thought, reached out to her fellow woman, and in so doing
moved and inspired those who watched, we can bring hope to hopeless situations
and shine many lights in the darkest parts of the world.
Now is the time. Stand up and lead.
Encourage your community to come along side as you engage in a good and
just fight that just might change the world. At minimum, it will change you and inspire others. It will give hope; and hope is a priceless
and rare commodity that we all desperately need now.
I will end here with a well-worn million dollar
campaign quote by Rob Bell from one of my favourite books, ‘Velvet Elvis’. I left a copy of this book at the
clinic in Lesotho the day I left the clinic and in the cover I wrote,
“To the people I have come love, stay strong, be
brave and remember;
I
am convinced being generous is a better way to live.
I
am convinced having compassion is a better way to live.
Fighting
against famine, debt, poverty, oppression, despair, slaughter, injustice,
loneliness and suffering for all mankind is a better way to live. Rob Bell"
Anne-Marie Zajdlik MD CCFP O.Ont MSM
Founder of Bracelet of Hope,
ARCH Clinic Guelph and Waterloo and
Hope Health Center
