BOSTON – AIDS Project Rhode Island has forged a partnership with the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, ensuring that callers to the Rhode Island HIV/AIDS/STD hotline will get locally based assistance again and providing for new regional HIV prevention efforts.
The hotline, 1-800-726.3010, was closed Dec. 31 after two decades of service due to a cut in funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Since then, callers to the hotline had been forwarded to the national hotline in Atlanta.
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As of Tuesday, March 1, callers are now connected to AIDS Action’s experts, who will have Rhode Island-specific information available. The two groups will also collaborate to reach out to gay men to raise awareness about syphilis and the dangers of methamphetamine use.
“When budgets shrink, innovative thinking must expand,” said Rebecca Haag, executive director of the Massachusetts program. “It’s more than anecdotal that many people from Massachusetts frequent Rhode Island, and vice versa. When we learned that the Rhode Island hotline was no longer funded to operate, we recognized that economies of scale would allow us to add nominal unrestricted funding from our own coffers to sustain the operation seamlessly, and improve overall service delivery by using our existing expertise, team and infrastructure.”
According to both agencies, with vibrant gay communities in Boston, Provincetown, and Providence, many gay men frequently travel between the two states. Almost 40 percent of the clients of AIDS Project Rhode Island’s Men’s Health Collaborative are from Massachusetts, executive director Chris Butler said.
To find out more about AIDS Project Rhode Island, go to www.aidsprojectri.org. AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts is at www.aac.org.
