Help for catastrophic illness, AIDS patient asks

“There are two catastrophes that will hit a family whenever cancer or AIDS will strike a member. The person that gets it will die and the family will have to shoulder the financial burden of ensuring best medical care,” said former senator George Bamba of Guam.

When he and former colleague and now the governor, Carl Gutierrez, introduced the Catastrophic Illness program on Guam, he was still mourning over his mother’s death due to cancer while her insurance ran out.

Today, his own medication runs to over $20,000 a year and he is down with AIDS.

“I am not a wealthy person and I certainly became a lot poorer since I’ve been sick. From the time I was hospitalized until today, the cost exceeded to quarter of a million,” he said.

Whether it was a stroke of fate that he co-authored the bill, today he is one of the close to 300 patients who benefit from it.

As he offered a brave face to HIV/AIDS in the CNMI over the weekend, he appealed to the local government of a similar support for patients like him.

“It is something that the (CNMI) government should look at because the last thing that a person or his family would have to deal with is the questioning conscience on whether they did enough,” he said in an interview.

Bamba and his wife Joyce talked before teachers and school administrators about their life after learning that he had it. The forum was sponsored by the Public School System. His coming out as an AIDS patient now extends to the CNMI as the local community continues to search for its own testimony.

According to Communicable Disease Control Program Manager Elsie Ramon, the Department of Public Health does not discourage its AIDS patients to come out. In fact, her office continues to search for one brave individual who can openly talk about the deadly disease.

Both the PPSS and private schools believe that they have an important role in educating children about AIDS and will continue to hold similar discussions.

“I think my biggest failure as parent was that I did not alert my children about the dangers out there,” Bamba said. When he learned that he had it years back, he promptly issued a statement about his health while recuperating in Honolulu.

It was a headline story back on Guam but calls also came in from families he didn’t know had members stricken with AIDS. Wife Joyce also rallied behind him.

“I have to be strong for him. When I saw him at the hospital after learning about his AIDS, he looked so scared,” she told the group.

Both had strong Catholic upbringing and the couple leaned on their faith. Now speaking more like a renewed Catholic, he admits to savor the time that he makes testimonies than the old political rhetoric he used to enjoy.

“I don’t want to live with the fact that I knew something about a disease and I didn’t say anything,” he said. Later told Saipan Tribune, “when I am gone, there will be somebody, whether from the CNMI or Guam that would carry on the work.”