After 40 years of serving people with HIV/AIDS, Nashville CARES is entering its next phase: Nashville CARES 2.0.
The nonprofit on Thursday opened its Cares 360 Community Clinic in South Nashville at 633 Thompson Lane. The nonprofit notes the facility will offer the most comprehensive care it has ever offered under one roof.
When Nashville CARES started 40 years ago, it focused on social services and treatment for those living with HIV/AIDs. The organization later added community education. The clinic wasn't launched until 2021, and primary care was added two years later.
CEO Amna Osman, who took on the role in 2020, tells the Scene's sister publication the Nashville Post that during the pandemic, she noticed Nashville CARES patients saw long wait times for medical needs at other clinics.
“It was really important for us to really support people to access services in a way that was rapid, that was efficient, that was high quality," she says. “And we actually started our clinic as a result of a major need in the community.”
It started with one clinician and has grown to 11 staff. The clinic is focused on patients who are living with HIV or are at risk for HIV, providing a full slate of care: behavioral health, psychiatry, primary care, and HIV care and prevention.
There’s a pharmacy on site that also sends medications by mail and there are telehealth capabilities to better serve the 17 Middle Tennessee counties that Nashville CARES covers. The mobile clinic covers some ground too.
If a person tests positive for HIV, Nashville CARES can get them antiretroviral therapy the same day. After less than two months on the medication, the patient can become undetectable, meaning they can no longer pass the virus to others.
“Making sure that we are able to provide them all the services that they need regardless of their ability to pay is not just for the best benefit of our patients, but also, ultimately, for the benefit of the community,” says Dr. Kassem Bourgi, medical director at Nashville CARES.
CARES is also part of the Tennessee Center for AIDS Research, which includes Vanderbilt, Meharry and the Tennessee Department of Health.
This connects patients to clinical trials, including upcoming on site trials planned for the CARES 360 clinic. In the early days, HIV/AIDS treatment started as a handful of pills several times per day, Bourgi says. Now the industry is shifting away from the streamlined one-pill-per-day treatment to injections every other month and, soon enough, twice-yearly injections.
“Even though we have great treatment, a lot of patients are not able to access it, either because they don't have food on the table, they don't have a roof over their head, or they have barriers to get to the clinic, or more importantly, they've never been tested before,” Bourgi says. “This is where Nashville CARES really shines, by making sure that we're not only addressing the treatment aspect of it, but also the other social aspects to make it easier for patients to access care.”
The main challenge in the field is finding people who need the care and making sure they get access to it, Osman and Bourgi agree. However, the state's refusal of HIV funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2023 and the federal government's cuts to funding in September both contributed to stigma, they say.
“The funding cuts and the reduction in funding and programs and services has put a lot of fear and concern for people who are accessing services in organizations like Nashville CARES and AIDS service organizations,” Osman says.
CARES has been impacted by funding cuts at both the state and federal levels in recent years. Osman says the organization diversified its funding sources before the cuts hit, so they were able to stay afloat with donations, corporate giving and proceeds from the federal 340B drug program.
Nashville CARES was even able to step up to serve as the presenting partner of Nashville Pride after corporate entities dropped out in June.
Members of the Tennessee Aids Advocacy Network, Nashville CARES’s advocacy arm, hope to preserve the state funding they have left.
“With all these cuts that we're seeing coming down the pipeline, a lot of people will be living with HIV and will not be able to access any services if we continue this way,” Osman says. “I think really focusing and investing in prevention as a state is going to be really critical, and I think the legislators need to know that.”
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
