INSIDE A HOUSE ON BROADWAY

Once upon a time, a diagnosis of AIDS was a complicated death sentence. The stigma and fear attached still generate stereotypical thinking. Even today, with the advent of protease inhibitors and medications to prolong and improve the lives of patients, a simple description of Broadway House for Continuing Care, an affiliate of UMDNJ, as a 66-bed, residential, treatment facility for adult AIDS patients, almost immediately conjures images of life at its saddest stage.

The truth is: nothing about the people inside, or this grand, brick and marble building on Broadway in Newark’s North Ward, are what you expect. Even Executive Director Jeanine M. Reilly, RNC, admits,

"No one is thrilled about coming to Broadway House when they first hear about us. They may even be dreading a visit but as soon as they walk in the front door, everything changes." Not only is the space a shocker, but life, not death, is routine.

"We see long lives," says James R. Gonzalez, President and Chief Executive Officer (pictured above, with patients). "Care here is focused on living with AIDS and not death from AIDS. Our programs teach residents life skills that include everything from paying bills to monitoring medications."

Broadway House opened its doors in 1996 when the AIDS epidemic was at its height and "a lot was still unknown about HIV," says Gonzalez. Though hospitals were anxious to move patients into centers with less expensive care, "nobody wanted an AIDS facility in their backyard."

The building may have been available but neighbors certainly weren’t ready for Broadway House, Gonzalez explains. Years of community involvement and education have wiped away the hostility. Each Christmas, the Broadway House party is a hit. "We had two Santas one year and had 1,000 kids come through with their parents," Reilly says. "Each child got a gift, too." The local Halloween parade takes place in their parking lot.

Students from local schools also come to Broadway House to learn more about HIV. Those with personal experience with AIDS in their homes may have secrets they have built up inside and can’t easily talk about because they are embarrassed. Everybody benefits, according to Reilly and Gonzalez. The fourth, fifth and sixth graders at Raphael Hernandez Elementary School across the street even wrote and filmed a musical, "In The Blink of An Eye," shot mainly in Broadway House, about a boy’s experience with AIDS.

The center of attraction in the soaring, two-story high lobby has been an aviary housing 25 brightly colored canaries. Residents pull chairs up around the large enclosed cage to watch the birds and wait for the emergence of babies from mothers’ nests. Pain, potent medications, the insensitivities of the medical system, and their own tough histories of violence or drug abuse produce vulnerable patients.

The birds in the lobby, as well as the physical, occupational, recreational and speech therapy, are part of a philosophy that also includes linen tablecloths in the dining room, tickets to New Jersey Performing Arts Center events, and palliative care that even takes in guided imagery, meditation, aromatherapy, pet therapy, acupuncture, Reike and massage. "Some folks come to us with what is considered to be wasting syndrome which means that their bodies are not metabolizing food. Very often, we can turn that around with comfort eating," Reilly says. If that means jalapeno peppers, six meals a day, that’s exactly what the dietary staff will produce.

In an era of nursing shortages and competition for trained technicians, Broadway House has also bucked the stereotypes. The national turnover rates for nursing home personnel is 93 percent but at Broadway House, it’s 4 percent. Staff, who often come because of a personal commitment to AIDS care, don’t leave. "They are dedicated to our residents and know each individual, down to the kind of milk they drink," Reilly says.