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they're they're getting there and we're working hard to make sure they understand that. Well, today is World AIDS Day, as you know, and the whole world needs to understand. It's a world problem. Not not a national problem, not a state problems, certainly not a city problem.

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I just think from here that, um, lot of people don't really care out there. I watched television a little bit. Now that I'm sick and these people say, Where do you give to your favorite charity? And I've never heard anybody say aids along the way There

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are Bill, there's a lot I'm going. For example, I'm going to a Christmas party tonight over here at the Galleria. But here I know they do. But I'm talking national. Yeah, no. And that's one of my concerns. It just can't be here. I have real keys

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back and the Midwest who won't even hug me here. So there the education is not good, but I also when I say about this place is just fantastic. Everything already six does hospital. What Nurses here are so loving and so caring and and also the volunteers

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to. This is a nice second belt with me and my sisters, and, uh, we have just been super. So you were a patient here before Bill Real in January. I did pretty good, and I did a lot of volunteer work after that. But couple months I

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started getting sick again, and I came in, and I've been here since the 11. Oh, November. Yeah? Yeah. Are you saying not living here in the city right now? Now, Outside the city somewhere? No, I have a could before stay here. No stress. It's expensive for

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both. You don't give up. Don't give up, okay? There's a lot of us that care about you. Obviously the people here, But I do too. Thank you. And we're out there. And when I'm out there in front of all those big shots Congress or all the

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rest of them, people like you flash in my head, okay? And I never forget her. I don't want you to forget that there are a lot of people and they're getting better outside too. Don't give up on them. Okay? Okay. I I'm just delighted and honored

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to me. Me too. Yeah. Here. Yeah. Click here. Was it systems? We are recording all right. That's fine. Mm. Right. Yeah. Are you all great? Yeah, I know. Are you from the city here? From the city. Terrific. I talked about it at the congregation. I did

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a sermon about two weeks ago at the Annunciation. Kidding. How did it go? So you went real well. Really receptive. Yeah. So? So we're doing right. Credit stuff? Yes. Thank you. Yeah, well, you see, Sashi, as you may know, is World AIDS Day. And what do

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you think about that idea? First of all, having sort of a day of, uh, devoted to this disease. Oh, well, you got to get the news out. Mhm. Where the mouth is, all I want to buy a tape is cheap. We cut, We had it. We

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make everyone look brilliant. It's amazing what we do. Let me ask you what it's like being cared for here at San Francisco. General, I've had very good, very good care, You know. They really cared for you. You know, I the staff is great. You know, I

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really felt that the during their Beth are they the unsung heroes of this epidemic? Do you think the volunteers as fast as fast project and Shanti Project Rather. And the nurses, of course. Is there anything you would like people to know? Just being a person with

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AIDS? Well, I diagnosed Monday Monday. I thought I had a future. How? I don't know. You know what's going to happen. And, you know, it's just terrible. Uh, I mean, who went? How can anybody? I just hope we can get rid of the thank you. So

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you were. And this is your nurses. That right, Can I? What is your name? Robin Kaiser. Robin, how long have you worked here on the ward? Two years. Tell me what it's like. Oh, it's hard work. It's, um it's really sad to be with people and

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get to know them and form relationships with them because they come back a lot of times more than was and then watch them die. And, yeah, it's it's real hard, but we keep working and we're a real family unit here. We work hard and we support

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each other. Yeah, it gets kind of rough, but we just keep going because we have faith and we hope for a breakthrough soon. We just want to work real hard this drug. Okay. Thank you. It is voluntary. Uh huh. What, are you gonna be in the

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hospital? Yeah. Yes. You've been here since the beginning. How has it changed over the last five years? Well, the numbers have changed. When we opened the ward, it was a 12 bed ward that in the first year, oftentimes wasn't full. And we now have a 20

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bed ward. There has been reduced to 16 because of the nursing shortage and unavailability of nurses. Um, but we have more patients, and the patients are sicker. And But there's also a lot more knowledge we know a lot more than we did five years ago. Five

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years ago, the HIV had not been discovered. Um, we weren't totally certain about the method of transmission, and we didn't know a lot in terms of treatments. And we know a lot more about those and people. There's more awareness. And there's a lot more support in

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the community. What's it like working here on a personal basis? Well, obviously, for me, it's been rewarding because I've been here for a long time. The work is hard, and the hours are long. Um, but, um, it's, uh as nurses. We've had a lot of autonomy

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to kind of create the environment nursing environment for our patients. And, um, and we're part of a team approach with the physicians and the social workers and the shanty counselors, and that, in and of itself is more of, uh, ideal nursing situation. The working conditions are

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very good. We get support, we give each other a lot of support, and we get a lot of support from the community, from the patients and from the family, so that makes it an extremely rewarding experience. I think the hard part is that the city is

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short of funds and we're understaffed. We don't have enough staff. We don't have enough nursing staff. We don't have enough janitors. We don't have enough lab techs. We don't have enough social workers, and that's really the hard part. It's not AIDS per se. That's the hard

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part. It's the the public health system being under pressure throughout the country and in this city in particular that causes the stress and the burn out, I think Do you feel like an unsung hero? No. You know the ward here and the nurses here have gotten

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so much recognition in many ways. I think it's not the nursing staff per se that doesn't get recognition. It's oftentimes the nurses on the other wards, um, who also take care of AIDS patients. They don't get their not in the media limelight. It's the janitors. It's

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the, you know, the people who actually, I think, got recognized in the documentary that was shown in the lobby ceremonies that, you know don't quite get the recognition. And you need the whole team, the whole health team to be involved. And, you know, the patients, I

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think are kind of the patients and the families. Are there people who are really at the center of the epidemic? Okay. Thanks for what? Yeah. Do you want, right? Mm. Sure was that. She was