From: rwockner@netcom.com (Rex Wockner) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 01:14:12 -0700 (PDT) BAJA CALIFORNIA LOCAL NEWS #6 BY REX WOCKNER 15 SEPTEMBER 1994 *********************************************************************** ALL ITEMS COPYRIGHT REX WOCKNER AND THE GAY & LESBIAN TIMES OF SAN DIEGO. DO NO REPRINT IN ANY NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR, rwockner@netcom.com. *********************************************************************** Tijuana AIDS Clinics Feud and Expand The AIDS clinic run by Tijuana's Municipal AIDS Committee (COMUSIDA) and the community group Organizacion SIDA Tijuana has expanded its hours to Monday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The city's gay-community-based AIDS clinic, ACOSIDA, also recently expanded operations, to two nights a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The clinics see from 14-30 patients a day. Meanwhile, the volunteers who run the clinics continue to criticize each other's services. ACOSIDA workers say the COMUSIDA clinic has no drugs to give its patients, none of whom can afford to buy them at a pharmacy. COMUSIDA Medical Director Carlos Diaz acknowledges ACOSIDA has more drugs, but charges this is because a small, clandestine program that funnels leftover drugs to Tijuana from San Diego (from places where PWAs have died) favors ACOSIDA over COMUSIDA -- due to longstanding conflicts between some activists involved in the drug smuggling and some people involved in COMUSIDA. Diaz counter-charges that ACOSIDA's doctors "don't know how to use the drugs they have." "Their doctors are not trained in AIDS," Diaz said last week. "They don't know what they're doing. It's criminal." Diaz said he regularly attends AIDS-update conferences at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). A spokesman for ACOSIDA, Fred Scholl, disputed Diaz' claims. "(ACOSIDA's) Dr. Blancas is one hell of a physician," Scholl said. "He has gone through the AIDS mini-residency at UCSD Medical Center and he's a physician at the La Mesa penitentiary, working with their AIDS patients. Our woman physician has also gone through the UCSD residency and knows what she's doing. "Our Dr. Briceno was a pharmacist before he went to medical school," Scholl said. "He is the most-knowledgeable physician I've run into in Tijuana in terms of medication interactions and such. All the ACOSIDA doctors understand the medicines and know their use." Scholl counter-attacked that in the days when the volunteers from both Tijuana AIDS clinics used to work together at just one clinic (until two years ago), Dr. Diaz "regularly misdiagnosed" AIDS-related conditions. "Dr. Lepe, our then-medical director, had to review the cases of every patient Carlos Diaz worked with," Scholl said. The COMUSIDA clinic is on Avenida Constitucion between Calles 8 and 9 at the city's Centro de Salud. The ACOSIDA Clinic is at 8324 Calle 10, one and one-half blocks east of Avenida Revolucion. *** Students To Work At AIDS Clinic Law and social-work students from the University of Baja California in Tijuana will volunteer at the gay-community-based ACOSIDA AIDS clinic under an agreement reached last week. The students are required to do 300 hours of community service during their freshman year. Clinic spokesman Jose Navarro said they will work as counselors, administrators, drivers, buddies and caretakers. *** New Gay Publication In Tijuana "Sobre Cultura Gay" is a new Tijuana publication that will appear three times a year. Fifteen hundred copies will be distributed in Tijuana, Ensenada and Mexicali, said Jose Navarro, president of Grupo Y Que?, the publisher. *** Tijuana Bar Starts Gay Night Diego's, a nightclub on Avenida Revolucion between Calles 4 and 5 is now gay on Tuesday nights starting at 9 p.m. Tijuana has six full-time gay venues, the bars El Ranchero and El Taurino and the dance clubs Noa Noa, Mike's Disco-Bar, Los Equipales and Terrazas. Addresses are in the Gay & Lesbian Times directory. *** Gay Play Sept. 23 in Tijuana The gay-themed play "La Senora Tiene Un Rosario" will be staged Sept. 23 at 8:30 p.m. at Mike's Disco-Bar on Avenida Revolucion to help pay off debts from the June gay-cultural week sponsored by the newspaper Frontera Gay. Admission is $5 or 15 pesos. "It's a simple play about a senora and her (female) maid who are in love, with both characters played by men," said Frontera Gay Editor Max Mejia. *** Tijuana Gay Rap Group Moves Tijuana's gay-men's rap group has moved from Emilio's cafe to the women-sex-workers' center Vanguardia de Mujeres Libres Maria Magdalena on Avenida Martinez between Calles 1 and 2. The group meets Thursdays from 9-11 p.m. Between 15 and 30 people attend. *** Tijuana Lesbian Group Starts Fall Meetings The Tijuana lesbian group Mujeres 2,000 (formerly CLIT) launches its autumn meetings Sept. 24 at La Capilla de Frida bookstore in the Plaza Fiesta shopping center in the Zona Rio neighborhood. For info, phone 011-52-66-88-02-67. *** Tijuana HIV+ Group Starts 7th Year The Tijuana HIV-positives' support group, Grupo de Apoyo VIH, enters its seventh year with a new location this fall. For directions to the Tuesday-evening meetings, phone 011-52-66-88-02-67. *** Tijuana AIDS Radio Program The Tijuana AIDS talk show Programa Radio S/SIDA airs Wednesdays from 8-9 p.m. on XEJ-FM, 94.5. It is hosted by Dr. Carlos Diaz, medical director of Organizacion SIDA Tijuana. == END ==