The best way to imagine the future is to start by remembering the past.  In July of 1990, I was a 26 year old, naïve, new family physician who was 3 months away from being a new mom.  When I walked into the two year old offices of the ACG on Delhi Street and asked if they could use a physician to help treat HIV positive patients,  ACG had three staff members and  they all looked at me as if I had three heads.  From 1990 to 1996, I joined in the devastating task of caring for so many people as they died.  HIV medicine was essentially palliative care medicine.  I remember prescribing the first ARV cocktail in 1996 and reading the first undetectable viral load test, shortly thereafter.  I felt sheer joy as I witnessed the miracle of that first patient coming back to life on treatment.  My heart sang for all those we helped bring back from the brink of death.

That new baby I was expecting in 1990 is now 19 years old and heading back to his second year at the University of Toronto.  Instead of trying to care for HIV positive patients in the busy atmosphere of my primary care practice, I now care for them at the Masai Centre.  I have joined in a marvelous collaboration with ACG.  That partnership allows for all those living with and affected by HIV to receive care by an ever expanding team all under one roof.  This year, Masai Centre Satellite opened its doors in KW and our team has grown to include ACCKWA in a more expanded partnership.  Three regions of the province, two clinics, two ASO’s, one growing and thriving organization and hundreds more receiving care, that is the beauty of partnerships and collaborations.

Thriving organizations like ours that help so many, attract good and compassionate human beings.  We have reshaped how HIV care is provided in South Western Ontario and extended that care to hundreds of people across this region.  Our African efforts in Leribe, Lesotho have manifested into a treatment clinic that now cares for 21,000 HIV positive people in that country, literally transforming a once dying community.  In 19 years we have accomplished a tremendous amount. We now have the ability to spread these positive effects in an ever expanding arena of care.

Our continued efforts both locally and globally, have the power to create a positive pandemic that could end HIV in our region and in the country of Lesotho.   Let’s hope that by 2020 we are well on our way to accomplishing this task as we continue to work together to transform the lives of those affected by HIV.

Anne-Marie Zajdlik MDCCFP
Founder and Director of the Masai Centre
The Masai for Africa Campaign and
The Bracelet of Hope Campaign