Norwalk, CT team carrying hope to AIDS patients in Africa
A Norwalk, CT team of health care professionals has created a
nonprofit foundation to establish a clinic for HIV/AIDS patients in
Zimbabwe where 13.7 percent of the adult population or 1.1 million
are infected by the disease.
In a sub-Saharan nation the size of Montana where AIDS has
left more than 1 million orphans, the mission is to treat HIV-positive
women to prevent their children from being born with the virus.
Driving the humanitarian initiative is Dr. Gary Blick, 55, of Stamford,
CT, medical director of the CIRCLE CARE Center in Norwalk, CT and
a groundbreaker in clinical research and HIV/AIDS treatment for 24
years
His fledgling World Health Clinicians, Inc., has reached an
agreement in principle with the government of Zimbabwe to create
an HIV/AIDS clinic at historic Victoria Falls that Dr. Blick and his
team envision will become the prototype of comparable clinics
in other communities of Zimbabwe and other HIV/AIDS-ravaged
countries in Africa.
As Dr. Blick expresses his philosophy: “The divide today between
wealth and poverty, between opportunity and misery and between
health and illness, is a source of global instability and a challenge
to our compassion. At its core, World Health Clinicians is simply
investing in people. The demands of dignity know no borders
or boundaries. We cannot in good conscience ignore parts of
the world as we seek
a better future for ourselves.”
Another pivotal figure in World Health Clinicians is Scott
Gretz, 49, of Stamford, the executive director of the CIRCLE
CARE Center who left an executive career in consumer
products “so I can make a meaningful contribution to improve
the lives of people in desperate need of help and hope.” He
adds: “Our vision, to save the next generation of Zimbabweans
from HIV/AIDS, is becoming a reality.”
To endow the Victoria Falls health care center over the
next three years, World Health Clinicians has assembled a
$15.1 million budget and is in the process of soliciting funding
from philanthropies and foundations, the business sector and
public-spirited individuals--while planning a number of
fundraisers.
B.E.A.T. AIDS Project Zimbabwe—the acronym created
for Bringing Education, Awareness/Advocacy and Treatment
for HIV/AIDS to Zimbabwe—calls for a center that is a
precedent for a politically isolated country where NGOs or
nongovernment organizations have struggled to establish
themselves and function effectively against a devastating
backdrop of, chronic poverty, hyperinflation, land
confiscations, anti-Western suspicions and a life expectancy of
37 for men and 34 for women.
Fundamentally Dr. Blick and team have developed a
three-pronged approach to delivering anti-HIV/AIDS medical
services based on education, patient advocacy and treatment,
utilizing HAART or High Activity Antiretroviral Therapy, approved
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and proven effective in
preventing transmission of the disease from pregnant mothers to
newborn infants.
It is the team’s intention to treat 500 patients the first year,
1,000 the second and 1,500 the third.
The Zimbabwean minister of health and child welfare in the
capital of Harare, Dr. Henry Madzorera, has endorsed the mission
of World Health Clinicians, Inc. So has Grace Mugabe, the wife of
Zimbabwe’s 86-year-old political strongman Robert Mugabe and
other high-ranking members of the administration, Chitsaka
Chipaziwa, Zimbabwe’s ambassador and permanent
representative to the United Nations, and Dr. Gerald Gwinji,
permanent secretary brigadier general, and Dr. Gibson Mhlanga,
director of the National AIDS Council.
The board chairman of World Health Clinicians isAndrew Wilk of
Westport, the former chief creative officer of Sony BMG Music
Entertainment and as such the chief executive in charge of the visual
content of 22 labels like Columbia, Epic and RCA. Prior to that he was
executive vice president at the National Geographic Channel where
he worked with Tom Brokaw, Bill Moyers, Peter Ustinov and Beverly
Sills. He has produced and directed more than 1,000 TV
episodes and was nominated for an Emmy for his direction of the
critically acclaimed PBS special “Going Home: Alvin Ailey
Remembered.” He was also executive producer of “Doctors Without
Borders.”
“I can’t stand by knowing I can save a mom and her baby for $3
per day," Wilk told an interviewer before a fundraiser (Nov. 12,
2010) at his Westport home.
Another Westporter, Dr. David Rubin, the medical director of the
the Special Care/HIV Center at the New York Hospital of Queens
in Flushing, NY, is also a member of the board.
Show Date(s):10/3/11
Website: http://www.worldhealthclinicians.org
