Metropolitan Los Angeles ranks third in total number of AIDS cases in the United States. One third of those cases are treated here at County General Hospital. But General Hospital, unlike public hospitals in New York, San Francisco, and many smaller cities, as well as several area private institutions, has no AIDS unit.
That this condition exists nine years into the AIDS epidemic is indicative of County’s gross insensitivity to People With AIDS. Although the social and medical benefits of dedicated AIDS units have long been established, bureaucratic inertia and administers who seek to protect their political fiefdoms have blocked its establishment here. This is compounded by the institutional homophobia which is rampant in the managerial ranks at County/USX. Over all this sits a County Board of Supervisors which cares little for its constituents generally and less for PWA’s who are often Gay, Black or poor.
We in the AIDS-affected communities have seen too many of our friends, family and lovers grow sick and die under these callous conditions. Today’s sit-in is only the beginning of our struggle to secure quality care for ourselves and others. ACT UP/LA will return and do whatever it takes to force Los Angeles County to fulfill its obligations. Today we are setting up a symbolic AIDS unit in the main lobby of General Hospital; doing what the hospital itself has refused to do.
Those of us living with AIDS are growing increasingly desperate. The urgency we feel only strengthens our resolve not to cooperate with a medical and political system which wishes to make us its victims.
Citation: Statement to the Press by Mark Kostopoulos of ACT UP/LA. April 30, 1988.