Saving children’s lives through advocacy
Advocacy is central to the mission of Children's Memorial.
“Many of our patients are too sick and too young to advocate for themselves,”
says Ram Yogev, MD
, co-director of
the hospital's Section of Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal HIV Infection.
“That's why it's important for us to serve as their voice.”
Yogev
was among the leaders who successfully lobbied for a new state law requiring
routine newborn HIV testing when a pregnant woman's HIV status is unknown.
Illinois is the first state in the Midwest and the third state in the nation to
pass a law mandating this life-saving standard of care.
Children's Memorial has played a major role in the
decline of mother-to-child HIV infection. A series of breakthroughs have reduced
the numbers of young children with HIV today. The hospital participated in a
landmark 1994 study that found that when pregnant women with HIV were given the
antiretroviral drug zidovudine (ZDV), the rate of transmission to their babies
dropped from 25 to 8 percent. The clinical trial was so conclusive that it was
halted in mid-study to allow all the participants to receive the treatment.
According to section co-director Ellen G. Chadwick, MD
, in 1992 there were
approximately 1,800 infants born with HIV infection in the U.S. Now, fifteen
years later, there are fewer than 100 such cases a year.
Because continuing medical advances and HIV education have reduced the
rate of perinatal HIV infection to less than two percent, today most of the
children with the virus treated at the hospital are school-aged. Chadwick says
it has been nearly eight years since they have diagnosed HIV in an infant whose
mother received HIV treatment during pregnancy. Most new children treated in the
program have emigrated from countries with a high prevalence of HIV.
Do you have a personal memory or reflection about your
experience with Children's Memorial?
Tell us your story The team at Children's Memorial has been involved in a number of efforts to
educate school personnel on the health needs of children with HIV. Chadwick has
been a consultant to the Chicago Public Schools and several suburban school
districts, where she has served as an advocate for these school-aged children
with the virus. She says that beginning in the mid-1980s, when fear and
ignorance of the facts about HIV/AIDS abounded, she and other members of the
program at Children's Memorial played a key role in advocacy by meeting with
parents, teachers and school officials and speaking at community meetings. Since
then, Chadwick says she's seen a change in society's acceptance of HIV
infection.
“I
used to spend so much of my time in the schools and the community trying to get
people to understand HIV and not to fear an HIV-positive child in their school,”
she says. “Today, the schools do much of that educating themselves.”
Children's Memorial Hospital seeks philanthropic funding to enhance its
programs and services. As a proud partner of the Children's Miracle Network
(CMN), all funds raised in the Chicago area through CMN also benefit Children's
Memorial. To find out how your support can help the hospital better serve
children and families, please contact the Children's Memorial Foundation at
773.880.4237 or Foundation@childrensmemorial.org.