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“Shedding all these individuals was by no means removed from his thoughts,” mentioned his brother, who’s his solely rapid survivor. “And it tied deeply into his private life. He misplaced his lover, who was his soul mate.”
His associate’s dying stirred one thing in him.
“When he lastly noticed those that survived, he noticed they weren’t surviving effectively,” he added. “So Stephen thought, ‘How can I do one thing about this?’ He couldn’t do something when it was occurring within the Eighties, however then he acquired his probability.”
Dr. Karpiak left Columbia College within the mid-Nineteen Nineties and moved to Phoenix to run a clinic for individuals residing with H.I.V. He additionally managed an company there that offered housing for homeless males residing with the virus.
Dr. Karpiak returned to New York in 1999 to guide the Satisfaction Senior Community. At some point at a well being honest he gave out a easy questionnaire that requested: In case you are older and have been to instantly fall unwell, do you will have somebody who would take care of you? After finding out the responses, he undertook his analysis.
Dr. Karpiak joined the school of New York College’s Faculty of Nursing in his 60s and later labored for G.M.H.C. (previously Homosexual Males’s Well being Disaster), the place he based its Nationwide Useful resource Heart on H.I.V. and Growing older.
When the coronavirus pandemic gripped New York, Dr. Karpiak grew involved about how older individuals residing with H.I.V. could be affected by lockdown. Sequestered in his Hell’s Kitchen condo, he took half in internet conferences with medical specialists to deal with the subject. He at all times inspired his analysis topics to tune in, so they may hear that somebody was looking for them.
“The Covid-19 pandemic confirmed us that we’re an ageist society,” Dr. Karpiak mentioned in 2020. “We hear misinformation always: ‘This virus solely impacts previous individuals,’ so most individuals, ‘don’t want to fret about it a lot.’”
“I’ve heard many older adults say, ‘The worst factor on the earth is to really feel deserted,’” he continued. “Much more unsettling is listening to from them, ‘There’s something worse than AIDS, like loneliness.’”
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