Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

WORLD AIDS DAY

ASK Wellness boss hopes health lessons learned from HIV and AIDS can apply to opioid crisis

Dec 1, 2020 | 5:27 PM

KAMLOOPS — ASK Wellness has come a long way from its meagre beginnings on a couch in a basement in 1988.

The organization now offers a number of supports for people in need, from housing to health and employment.

On World AIDS Day Tuesday (Dec. 1), ASK Wellness Executive Director Bob Hughes took a moment to reflect. Hughes remembers just how severe the stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS was when he first started with the organization.

“There was so much scorn, fear and animosity towards people living with HIV,” Hughes remembers. “With people dying as a result of an opiate crisis, there are some incredible parallels.”

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Hughes believes the lessons learned during the fight against HIV and AIDS can help us through the current opioid crisis.

“What we’ve done with the HIV movement across the world, with treatment as prevention, literally changed the entire landscape of blood-borne infections, Hughes says. “I really hope we can learn from the incredible efforts of the HIV world and apply it to what we see with the addictions crisis.”