AIDS during the 80s

[Irish_Mist]

We are studying lymphatics and immunity in my anatomy and physiology 2. For extra credit, we watched a movie called "And the Band Played On". It was about the AIDS epidemic and the doctors from the CDC as well as the French scientists and doctors trying to figure out what was killing gay men, hemophiliacs, and others.

I learned about things like bath houses, the retrovirus topic, patient zero. Forgive me for sounding a bit "sheltered". I just never knew about the bath house topic but then again, I was born in 1988. :)

My mom was a restaurant manager at the time and even lost some of her employees/dear friends to AIDS. It truly was saddening to read about how these people lost their lives and how initially no one knew why. Anyhow, I'm sure many of you were nurses in the 80's when AIDS was such a mysterious crisis. If you were a nurse in the 80's, please chime in. Being in the medical field, what was it like? Were you afraid of getting this mystery disease? I read that there were some healthcare workers who refused to care for anyone with "gay cancer". Watching this movie got me thinking. It was fascinating to research AIDS from a cultural and scientific perspective. Things definitely have shifted in a different direction.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

Greatthread!

I had the privilege of working with a great doc who specialized in InfectiousDisease. It was/is his passion, and while out of local treatment today, is veryinvolved internationally in policy and surveillance.

I learned SO MUCH from he and his wife who really served, with compassion, theunloved, unwanted and shunned. Early AIDS/HIV and Hep C patients. Some of themost fascinating people I have ever met. I met him in 1991, when he was theMedical Director of the home health agency I worked for at the time. I got acall at home one weekend because (the on call nurse could not get her head outof a paper bag) one of our patients was dying and needed a morphine pump. Ittook two phone calls and a visit to meet up with the patient and the DME company.He was set up, I had a great visit with him, he was medicated appropriately anddied about 24 hours later, very peacefully, at home. after that I startedworking in their office part time for many years.

This was the start of a beautiful friendship that continues to this day, eventhough he is jetting all over the world doing great work. I learned compassion,empathy and caring. We welcomed those patients’ with open arms.

When I started a job in the school system, I brought a wealth of experiencewith me and it helped us develop appropriate policy regarding blood bornepathogens and universal precautions.

I worked closely with a group of folks that many people do not have the fortuneto work with and it has made me a better nurse and a better human being than I might have otherwise been.

[rnsrgr8t]

I remember in the early nineties coming home to my mom crying b/c one of her old coworkers had died. Her formal coworker (and guy she dated before she met/married my dad) had died of AIDS. They were medical technologists (back in the days before they had phlebotomists to do blood draws) so they worked in the lab and did all the blood draws for the hospitals. My Mom quit working in 1976 when I was born. M continued to work. In the early 80's, he had back surgery and had a lot of blood transfusions. He ended up getting HIV from one of the blood transfusions and died. It was so sad. There was such a stigma about it being a "gay" disease but there were so many who died from infected blood (like Ryan White) b/c they did not know they needed to screen for it back then. I remember when Magic Johnson came out that he was + and what an outrage there was in professional basketball.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Yes exactly. It's easy to judge the shameful behavior of professionals in hindsight. However it must have been unbelievably frightening to have a 100% fatal disease, that you know nothing about, loose in the community. I can easy see how panic would set in. My generation views HIV as a manageable illness, not a sure death that it was in the 80s.

Can you imagine today...there is this new disease that is killing people....a zombie like Apocalypse . These people are wasting away in front of your eyes and acting crazy. Then dying.

The weren't sure what it was. They weren't sure how it was spread. I mean if you can get equine encephalitis from a mosquito bite after biting an infected horse....why can't you get AIDS? It was scary. Then they discovered it was in the blood supply......how much blood and plasma did we give that was infected. I remember seeing the plasma centers in the inner city line up with lines around the corner because they paid people to donate plasma and they needed a fix.

I too remember the HTLV3, ARC positive terms. We would run T-cell counts on patient to see if they were "at risk". It was a death sentence. I remember the shock when Rock Hudson a Hollywood hunk dies of AIDS. Princess Dianna was the fist to publically hug an AIDS patient. Magic Johnson is still alive.

It changed causal sex from the 70's and 80's. It changed how we all looked at things. How we tested for things. How people think about blood transfusions. Sex education was a preventive measure that can be life saving.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I was born in '81, so I was too young to be a nurse during the 1980s. However, my aunt succumbed to AIDS circa 1986. She contracted the disease about three years prior when she had been attacked, raped and stabbed on a muddy hillside one rainy night.

I was in kindergarten when she died and I recall the family members acting very hushed about the situation. She was cremated and no one knows where her ashes are to this very day.

I'm sorry for your Aunt. How sad.

[mercurysmom]

I was a nursing student in the late 80's, and our instructors were doing their best to encourage us to use gloves during procedures with a risk of contact with body fluids. The nursing home where we did our "junior" clinicals (before we were capped and LONG before we received that coveted blue stripe that designated us as "seniors") was not nearly as progressive in the use of PPE. We eventually started bringing gloves from the school, since there was generally one box available for the entire floor, "And it better last all shift!" Finger cots, however...there were plenty of finger cots for us to use! (I haven't seen a finger cot in years. Do they still exist?) Anyway, our instructors wanted us to learn how to use PPE while working with the elderly "so we'll be experienced once we get into the hospital, where it will really count." As if elderly patients were never HIV+.

My Mom had surgery several times in the 70's and 80's, and received countless units of PRBC's. I was with her when her surgeon told her that she had received countless units of blood that had not been screened for HIV, Hep B, and "Non-A/Non-B Hepatitis." At that point, her health had improved and she was working as an RN in a local hospital. Without a second thought, she had the HIV and Hep B tests drawn at the same time as her routine CBC and BMP...at the outpatient lab at the hospital where she had worked for years, after finishing her scheduled shift. That afternoon, she received a call from the nursing supervisor: she was placed on medical leave, pending the results of the HIV and Hep B tests. Fortunately, those particular tests and all subsequent ones were negative. I have absolutely no doubt, however, that she would have been "let go" if any of those tests had come back positive. On top of that, how disturbing is it that the lab tech could call Mom's unit supervisor and potentially say, "MercurysGrandmom was just here and was tested for AIDS and Hepatitis?" As crazy as HIPAA regulations make us sometimes, I'm grateful that I won't have to experience that kind of gossip about my private health information.

[rnsrgr8t]

I was a nursing student in the late 80's, and our instructors were doing their best to encourage us to use gloves during procedures with a risk of contact with body fluids. The nursing home where we did our "junior" clinicals (before we were capped and LONG before we received that coveted blue stripe that designated us as "seniors") was not nearly as progressive in the use of PPE. We eventually started bringing gloves from the school, since there was generally one box available for the entire floor, "And it better last all shift!" Finger cots, however...there were plenty of finger cots for us to use! (I haven't seen a finger cot in years. Do they still exist?) Anyway, our instructors wanted us to learn how to use PPE while working with the elderly "so we'll be experienced once we get into the hospital, where it will really count." As if elderly patients were never HIV+.

My Mom had surgery several times in the 70's and 80's, and received countless units of PRBC's. I was with her when her surgeon told her that she had received countless units of blood that had not been screened for HIV, Hep B, and "Non-A/Non-B Hepatitis." At that point, her health had improved and she was working as an RN in a local hospital. Without a second thought, she had the HIV and Hep B tests drawn at the same time as her routine CBC and BMP...at the outpatient lab at the hospital where she had worked for years, after finishing her scheduled shift. That afternoon, she received a call from the nursing supervisor: she was placed on medical leave, pending the results of the HIV and Hep B tests. Fortunately, those particular tests and all subsequent ones were negative. I have absolutely no doubt, however, that she would have been "let go" if any of those tests had come back positive. On top of that, how disturbing is it that the lab tech could call Mom's unit supervisor and potentially say, "MercurysGrandmom was just here and was tested for AIDS and Hepatitis?" As crazy as HIPAA regulations make us sometimes, I'm grateful that I won't have to experience that kind of gossip about my private health information.

WOW!!! That must have been frightening for your Mom and the fact that her work was called b/c of the labwork she had drawn? Can you imagine that happening today???

Glad she was ok!

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

I was a teenager during the 80s and it was scary. Anyone remember how being Haitian was considered an at-risk group? No one knew why until they dug down and discovered there was a group of Haitian male prostitutes that shouldn't have been counted as a separate risk group. Being Haitian didn't by itself place you at risk.

I was in nursing school 1991-1992. It was after universal precautions and just immediately after OSHA started really cracking down to make sure people were really wearing them. We didn't have them in every room, instead you were lucky to find a box of medium gloves (latex, powdered) every 2-3 rooms sitting on the railing in the hallway. We learned real quick to always have a pair stashed in our pockets for those unexpected situations you always encounter.

Everyone knew you needed to "double glove" for AIDS patients. My initial floor didn't get them all that often and when they were diagnosed, they were pretty quickly rushed into hospice because:

They all died.

Every one of them.

I didn't understand Magic Johnson. I've guess he got probably got the "cocktails" early on.

Then I transferred to cardiac and didn't see AIDS patients for a long time. Then in the late 90's I had an HIV+ (not full-blown AIDS) who was in the hospital for a chest pain work-up. Weird!! The man was living with HIV! I read up and found out many HIV+ patients were now living years on the new cocktails. Amazing the progression I had seen with this disease in a few short years.

Oh, and my dear sweet minister daddy had worries about me being a nurse because I would be taking care of those homosexuals with AIDS. It was a quick conversation when I asked him how would Jesus treat a homosexual with AIDS. Would he be a nurse to AIDS patients?

Never heard another word about it.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

Was not a nurse then, but had a cousin who was in the first wave of homosexuals to die in California. I think of him a lot as we were great friends growing up. I remember the Govt. sending an informational brochure to every home in America, trying to stem panic. Condoms were opening discussed (never before that time!) and advertised on TV. I know there was lots of discussion about whether or not it was "morally" right to care for peple who, according to some, got their problems from immoral living. Thankfully, some caregivers were smarter than that.

Your post reminded me about my mother worked with homosexuals during that first wave as a social worker during that time period; I was born in 81.I remember her stories on helping coordinate care and other needs for them, as well as providing that imformation.

I worked in a hospital outside of a major city that would treat homosexuals and HIV & AIDS pts like the plague-and this was the early 2000s, you would've though you were back in another era with some of the nurses attitudes...

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

I was a nursing student in the late 80's, and our instructors were doing their best to encourage us to use gloves during procedures with a risk of contact with body fluids. The nursing home where we did our "junior" clinicals (before we were capped and LONG before we received that coveted blue stripe that designated us as "seniors") was not nearly as progressive in the use of PPE. We eventually started bringing gloves from the school, since there was generally one box available for the entire floor, "And it better last all shift!" Finger cots, however...there were plenty of finger cots for us to use! (I haven't seen a finger cot in years. Do they still exist?) Anyway, our instructors wanted us to learn how to use PPE while working with the elderly "so we'll be experienced once we get into the hospital, where it will really count." As if elderly patients were never HIV+.

My Mom had surgery several times in the 70's and 80's, and received countless units of PRBC's. I was with her when her surgeon told her that she had received countless units of blood that had not been screened for HIV, Hep B, and "Non-A/Non-B Hepatitis." At that point, her health had improved and she was working as an RN in a local hospital. Without a second thought, she had the HIV and Hep B tests drawn at the same time as her routine CBC and BMP...at the outpatient lab at the hospital where she had worked for years, after finishing her scheduled shift. That afternoon, she received a call from the nursing supervisor: she was placed on medical leave, pending the results of the HIV and Hep B tests. Fortunately, those particular tests and all subsequent ones were negative. I have absolutely no doubt, however, that she would have been "let go" if any of those tests had come back positive. On top of that, how disturbing is it that the lab tech could call Mom's unit supervisor and potentially say, "MercurysGrandmom was just here and was tested for AIDS and Hepatitis?" ****As crazy as HIPAA regulations make us sometimes, I'm grateful that I won't have to experience that kind of gossip about my private health information.****

If aything, when HIPAA was enacted it helped aid in decreasing discrimination due to individuals that had the disease; even though the awareness of transmission was available then.

[flashpoint]

I was a nursing assistant in 1988. Universal precautions were new in the nursing home industry (at least in that area of the country). Nurses were appalled that we wore gloves for things like pericare and oral care. The facility was gracious enough to provide us with extra-large vinyl gloves that didn't fit anyone. But...they were all that we had. Many of the residents were offended that we wore gloves when caring for them. We only wore them when there was risk of being exposed to body fluids...most of their cares didn't require them. Sharps containers were new to the facility. The nurses used to recap the needles, put them in their pockets, and put them in the trash at the end of their shift. We had one nurse that used to tease nursing assistants by threatening to poke them with used needles.

When I started the practical nursing program in 1991, we were told to only wear one glove when giving an injection. The hand holding the syringe was bare. We had to get a consent signed before HIV testing. The consent had to be notarized. If someone who lived in the community asked us not to wear gloves when caring for them, we were expected to take them off. The hospital CEO assured us that people in our town didn't get AIDS.

[flashpoint]

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/QQBDRL.pdf

This is a link to a copy of the pamphlet on AIDS that was sent out by the government in 1988.

[AmyRN303, BSN, RN]

Flashpoint, I remember that flyer (I was in seventh grade) and it was my first information about the virus other than what was shown on the nightly news. Again, I totally understand how scary it must have been in the 70s and early 80s when health professionals didn't know transmission and many, if any details of progression. I still don't understand some of the phobia I see today with regards to HIV. Like a previous poster, I'm much more concerned about Hepatitis B/C, and even then, not too concerned other than using proper precautions.