News

To honour our communities, their knowledge and their strength, CANAC is proud to endorse the HIV2020: Communities Reclaiming the Response gathering slated for July 2020 in Mexico City. We stand in solidarity with people living with HIV and affected communities.

Registration is now open for CANAC’s 28th Annual Conference on May 21-23, 2020 in Edmonton, Alberta. Click here to visit the conference web page and register. 

The Conference Planning Committee invites abstracts focusing on advocacy practices and change. Clinical management and nurse leadership initiatives that are innovative and inspiring are encouraged.

Deadline has been extended until February 28th, 2020.

Click here for the Call for Abstracts and Workshops.

This year the theme for World AIDS Day is Communities Make the Difference. It is an important theme that recognizes the value of community and that much happens when people come together. Communities have come together to provide care, to tackle stigma and to create spaces where people are recognized and remembered. Some of these communities are being led by people living with HIV; other communities are being led by nurses in an effort to provide care, challenge discrimination and ensure human rights are being upheld.

There are many examples that show what can happen when communities come together. Here is one example, which is inspiring, shared by Jeff Rheinhart, the current treasurer of CANAC:

In July of 2018, I attended a planning meeting around gay men’s health in Toronto, hosted by the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN). While there, I found myself in a small breakout session with other healthcare providers, community workers and people living with HIV to discuss healthcare access for people with HIV who do not have immigration status or health insurance in Canada. There was a willingness in the room to respond to the needs of people who live in Canada ‘undocumented and uninsured’. One year later, in August 2019, we opened the Blue Door Clinic.

The Blue Door, at its heart, represents a combination and culmination of all of the important lessons we’ve learned about HIV care since the 80s. As a clinic specializing in HIV treatment and care for people who are precariously insured or who lack access to care due to immigration status or insurance status in Toronto, the clinic aims to make a dent in the remaining 10-10-10 of the cascade. Many in the HIV movement consider this part of the cascade where priority efforts are needed to curb the epidemic. But aside from those high level policy foci, I started to think more about the Clinic’s operation and its relationship to some of the ideals of HIV nursing.

We often think about GIPA and MIPA (greater and meaningful involvement of people with HIV/AIDS), but sometimes have a hard time translating that into practice. For Blue Door, part of GIPA/MIPA had to be listening to people with HIV for years, some of whom reported to us that, despite efforts to meet their needs, their immigration status still made it hard to access care; listening and holding that in our minds, waiting for the stars to align, like they did that day in July 2018, to make a move towards making a change. As nurses, we hear about the challenges of our clients, respond to what we can within the systemic limits around us and foster patience in ourselves to be able to change the system when opportunities arise.

From the beginning of the movement, community collaborating was a cornerstone of the HIV response. And so community and ASO partners are cornerstone to the Blue Door’s success, helping to identify people who could use the service and support them as they navigate through the medical pieces of HIV care. Clinically, we know that interdisciplinary care improves outcomes for clients. The Blue Door works with doctors, nurses, social workers, case managers, coordinators, peer workers, reception staff and managers to respond to client needs. This holistic care would not be possible without the combined partnership of ten different health and social service agencies.

All of this comes together for just 6 hours each month of clinic time. A tiny grain of sand in the hourglass that makes up all the time spend to address HIV and its impact. But a grain of sand that is impactful, meaningful and collaborative and one that I am proud to share with you on World AIDS day.

We hope you will find time this week to join your local communities in an efforts to address pressing issues in HIV care, treatment and prevention, and to draw attention to the importance of protecting the human rights of people living with HIV.

This year’s annual CANAC Conference welcomed Dr. Michael Silverman,  Lawson Associate Scientist and Chair/Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care London as a plenary speaker at the PreConference day. This day highlighted work that is being done in London, ON to combat the declared HIV/HCV crisis. One of the ways the outbreak in London is being tackled is through the “Cook Your Wash” Campaign, research done by Dr. Silverman and other researchers at Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University.

The Ontario Harm Reduction Distribution Program (OHRDP) and The Ontario Harm Reduction Network (OHRN) have created a document that summarizes and emphasizes key messaging surrounding this campaign.

Be sure to check out this document and also the published studies in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (JAIDS) – free without subscription. There will be prompting for a sign in, click cancel and go back on your browser.

https://www.catie.ca/sites/default/files/ohrdp-ohrn-note-findings-05032019.pdf

https://journals.lww.com/jaids/pages/results.aspx?txtKeywords=silverman+injection+drug

Three positions are up for election on our Board of Directors for the coming year:

• Regional Rep, Quebec
• Regional Rep, Atlantic
• Secretary

The nomination deadline is July 15, 2019. Please see the 2019 Board of Directors Nomination Package for more information.

CANAC’s 27th Annual Conference, Tradition and Innovation: Informing Today’s HIV Care, is set for April 25-27, 2019 in London, Ontario.

Our conference information page is up and running. Please join us!