Original subtitles

[indistinct chatter]

[door creaks]

[door clicks]

[door creaking]

[tranquil music]

[tranquil music continues]

["Dreaming" by Blondie playing]

♪ When I met you In the restaurant ♪

♪ You could tell I was no debutante ♪

♪ You asked me...

[man 1] Over the past year,

homosexuals have been coming out into public.

Uh, refusing to hide in the closet, simply said.

♪ And tell you of my dreamin'

♪ Dreamin' is free

♪ Dreamin'

Very, very new scene.

Certainly new to me, and quite, quite fascinating.

♪ Beat feet walking a two-mile

♪ Meet me

♪ Meet me at the turnstile

♪ I never met him

It's not 1954 anymore, it's 1973, and...

And boys go to bed with boys, and girls go to bed with girls,

and, uh, some people go to bed with both.

♪ Filling up an idle hour

♪ Fade away

[Harry] The '70s were about that attempt that we made

to carve out a place for ourselves in society

that had never been done before.

Just the simple thing

of being able to walk hand in hand

down the street.

People kind of go like, "Yeah, big deal."

It is a big deal

because I've had beer bottles thrown at me

because of doing that.

[man 2] The biggest thing that's been accomplished

is for a substantial number of people

to identify themselves as full-fledged and...

worthwhile human beings.

[man 3] This is our day.

This is our day.

We are growing in power with every day that passes.

And we will not be stopped!

♪ Dreamin'

[Cliff] It was wide open.

I mean, there were a lot of people my age here.

[Cliff] The party scene was wild.

[inaudible]

1981 was when things really began to change.

Scientists at the National Centers

for Disease Control in Atlanta, today,

released the results of a study,

which shows that the lifestyle of some male homosexuals

has triggered an epidemic of a rare form of cancer.

I fit the profile

kind of a typical Kaposi's patient in my age...

and that I'm gay, and...

But I don't know how I got it.

[Cliff] I was at San Francisco General.

I was a clinical nurse specialist.

[Cliff] And I saw some of the first young men

who died of cancer.

No one had ever quite dealt with something like this.

[David] At the time I was working

in an intensive care unit,

and we had patients that came through with this illness.

And then, my landlord started getting sick.

Um, and within a month or two,

um, boom, he was gone.

[David]Everybody was whispering that he had this gay cancer.

My boyfriend said,

"I don't want to get this gay cancer."

And then I started to see my friends getting sick.

[tense music]

Weeks later, they were down to skin and bones.

[Harry] We were just shriveling up and dying.

Our immune systems were going,

we were catching diseases nobody had ever heard of.

[Harry] I remember that one camping trip

because there was this very handsome blonde boy

that I was attracted to...

walking across these rocks...

looking like a leopard.

[Harry] Within a few months, he was dead.

I started working per diem at the General.

[Alison] I saw these young, gay men

placed in the isolation rooms at the ends of the hallways.

-[EKG beeping] -[machine whirring]

[Cliff] No one knew how you were going to get it.

[Paul] Could this be a disease spread through the air?

[ominous music]

Doctors could only treat the symptoms,

never the underlying cause.

[Lorraine] At the beginning, it was only gay men.

Only later did drug addicts, uh, have it.

And even in nursing, I mean, it was dirty nursing.

and people didn't want to get involved with it.

And we all knew at that time it was a 100% fatal.

[Alison] We were expected to wear,

what we called "spacesuits."

[tense music]

Yesterday, I had an X-ray done,

and the girl spent 20 minutes

gowning up, gloving up, masking up.

We were afraid of them.

[David] Everybody was.

[Alison] Breakfast trays would pile up

because even the auxiliary staff

didn't want to go in.

[Cliff] I saw patients alone

begging for someone to come assist them.

[David] And if they soiled their bed,

people were gonna wait until the last minute they could

to change it, and...

out and out refuse to take care of people.

[machine whirring]

I would not want to operate on that patient, no.

[interviewer 1] Have you had occasion

to turn down such an operation?

Yes, I have.

The person said outright, "I'm not touching him."

[Alison] How could you not provide the care

that you know how to do?

In hospitals right now,

persons with AIDS feel particularly alienated

and particularly isolated.

It made me angry.

[Cliff] And the director of nursing

at San Francisco General came and sat down.

And she was like, "We have to do something."

And I said,

"Okay, I'll do it."

[reporter 1] At San Francisco General Hospital,

the staff is gearing up

for the opening of a special wing

to treat AIDS victims.

[Cliff] People were like,

"Well, you're probably going to get AIDS

and you're probably going to die."

Yeah, I might have some anxiety about this,

but I'm more pissed off and angry than I am scared.

[upbeat music]

[Alison] I see signs up

about this new unit.

I was instantly really interested.

There's an enemy.

And it's, it's a disease.

I'd heard about this dedicated AIDS unit.

[Magee] I came from New York,

and I had this hope that I could get a job on this unit.

I had seen the patients being marginalized.

And I just

found it infuriating.

[Magee] And then I got called for an interview.

♪ Don't sit around

♪ You've got to wake up And live ♪

♪ Don't piss around

♪ You've got to wake up And live ♪

[Magee] One of the staff said,

"What is your zodiac sign?"

And I just said, "Uh, Cancer."

And she said, "Well, good,

because there's too many Leos on nights."

[Hank] It was built by the nurses there.

And they physically built that ward.

♪ Go!

[Alison] We were making it.

We were creating it.

[reporter 2] The nurses all volunteered for this duty.

If I had said no to any of them,

they might have done physical harm to me.

[Alison] Cliff had a vision.

We were gay, we were straight, we were young, we were old.

And they were all kind of kick-ass,

even the straight ones.

[applause]

[Alison] And he said...

"Go home and talk to your significant others,

because we don't know.

We can't tell you

you're not going to get this disease."

I was ready, but I was scared.

My wife and I really couldn't talk about it.

Couldn't talk about our fear.

[Paul] It was just so much there...

but I distinctly, uh, remember

having recurrent nightmares...

that I had given it to my kids.

[reporter 3] This ward will be empty tonight,

the last time for a long while.

Tomorrow, AIDS patients will be moving in

and a unique experiment in medical care begins.

And then, they started coming.

[grunts]

[groans]

[machine beeping]

[Alison] One after the other...

in pain or struggling for breath...

with an array of immune deficiency that was...

mind-boggling.

[Alison] Some people could be treated,

at least for a while,

and they were discharged.

Then, they came back unrecognizable,

either in appearance, or demeanor, or both.

From one week to the next, you could see the difference.

And the amount of time between diagnosis and...

terminal velocity, or whatever you want to say,

was usually less than four months.

I mean, medically...

[scoffs] This is a horror story.

And no one seems to realize it yet.

[tense music]

[knocks on door]

[Paul] I remember seeing one patient for the first time.

Before I even examined him,

I diagnosed three, simultaneous,

opportunistic problems that he had.

Did you have...

Have you noticed any change with the Kaposi's

since you've been admitted with Pneumocystis pneumonia?

Uh, not really.

There's... I have so many lesions,

-it's rather difficult to... -[Paul] Mm-hmm.

[Paul] Every patient said, "I'm gonna beat this."

No one beats this.

No one beats this.

I can't, you know,

imagine what it must feel like

to not feel like you can breathe.

[somber music]

[machine beeps]

[Magee] It was a very, very unpleasant death.

[machine beeps]

[David] Thanks, we've been meaning to change

the bed mattress and cushion, up in there.

[Magee] One of the first things David Denmark said to me was,

"You have to get out of the mode

that you're here for curing people,

and really get into the mode

that you're here to care for people."

[machine beeping]

[Diane] This patient was dying, and, uh...

and he started saying,

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

And I said, "Why are you saying you're sorry?"

And he looked at me and he said,

"I just don't know how to do this.

I've never done it before." [chuckles]

And we just...

Everybody in the room just burst out laughing.

And, and then, you know,

he died, like, three minutes later.

[inaudible]

We decided that if we can't save these folks...

[inaudible]

...we're gonna touch them.

And, and, of course, that was a time

when nobody even knew how it was, uh, spread.

The danger was very real.

We were making

an educated guess, but it was a guess.

We could have been wrong.

...comes in and grabs my hand. I...

Like I said, I had no human contact

for a year.

I didn't touch anybody.

[patient 1] I mean, you, uh, forget love.

You forget things like that. It's, uh...

When somebody does touch you, kind of, you're like, "Wow!"

And, and they didn't have gloves on.

They were... The, the staff.

[George] I mean, you know, and that...

That makes such a huge difference.

I mean, you know...

Yeah.

This was a tangible thing you could do.

[Magee] Wash them, put moisturizer on them.

[Alison] The night sweats could be really difficult,

so you might be up all night with someone

changing their bed several times.

[patient 2] Other nurses are afraid of their patients

and wear all these gloves and things and masks, and...

And over here in this ward, they're, uh...

not afraid to touch you or to hold your hand, and...

They were permitting us to share

this intimate experience of their dying.

It scares me to think that I'll be laying on some slab.

[patient 3] Uh, that's what scares me the most.

[somber music]

And I said to staff...

[Cliff] "People need human contact.

You know how to do it."

[David] And they said,

"Crawl in bed with this patient."

And this had never happened in my career.

And I remember just thinking...

"What?"

When I first became a nurse,

there was just this sense that you were supposed to...

maintain a certain clinical objectivity.

[Magee] And boundaries are important,

but here...

you were allowed to love your patients.

[Alison] In the early days of the unit,

I met Roger and Gordon.

Gordon had Pneumocystis pneumonia

and Roger was there with him

as much as he could be.

[Alison] They recreated their home in the room.

You know, champagne glasses, even if it's just for water.

And then, Roger was ill.

They couldn't necessarily care for each other, but...

they were full of grace.

They gave me these little earrings.

They're not... They weren't very expensive.

And usually, you know,

you don't take gifts from patients...

but they wanted to give me something.

[Alison] Roger died...

and...

Gordon committed suicide at home.

[somber music]

That was, uh...

It was a very, really, hard time.

Any major losses lately?

[David] Or major changes?

Uh, outside, outside the diagnosis today, no.

[David] Family problems? How is family doing?

[patient 4] Got me.

[nurse 1] I met one young man.

I don't believe his father would let his mother come.

I mean, what a thing that they're missing,

that they're...

They're not here with him when he's hurting.

Just because someone was biologically your family,

didn't necessarily mean

that they were family at all.

My lifestyle was somewhat

repugnant to my parents.

Bathhouses.

There was a bathhouse down the street

about eight blocks away.

And, uh...

Every time I'd drive down there to go downtown, I could...

[patient 5's father] I would look to see

if my son's car was there.

[Cliff] I remember when a mother and father appeared,

and the dad was like,

"I want all these people out of here."

Uh, you know,

"He brought all this on himself.

He's brought disgrace to us."

Someone who has been your partner,

you know, for years,

is not recognized as a visitor,

or someone who can help you make decisions.

I mean, how outrageous is that?

[man 4] Everything's all taken care of, honey.

There's nothing more to take care of.

[Cliff] So, we started letting patients

define who was family.

[Alison] No one had really done that.

Everyone is so intimidated.

There was never a question of whether you were a relative,

if you were there to see somebody,

you got to see somebody.

The nurses on, uh, 5B were...

in charge.

They made the rules as they went along.

And because they did such a great job

taking care of patients,

what is the hospital administration going to do?

[Guy] Stuff that seems obvious now,

it was revolutionary.

[Harry]You could have your pet.

Pets could visit.

Nurses would squeeze your pet in and put it under a coat.

[Cliff] If their partner wants to lay next to them in bed...

we know how to make that happen.

Other professionals would come in,

and you could see the look...

"Oh, my god, they're... You know, what are they doing?"

-[camera shutter clicking] -[indistinct chatter]

[chattering continues]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

The probable cause of AIDS has been found.

A variant of a known human cancer virus

called HLT... HTLV-3.

We now have a blood test for AIDS,

which we hope can be widely available

within about six months.

I was tested for, uh, HIV,

I think, before it was called HIV.

When I was negative,

it was, you know...

[stammers] a huge burden...

um, taken off.

And we could say, you know, with real certainty,

if I weren't infected by whatever this thing was,

this was not transmissible easily.

It was clear. It wasn't something that was...

that you got if someone sneezed.

It wasn't something that you got

if you touched someone's hand or hugged them.

But there were still nurses operating from, um, real fear.

[reporter 4] A handful of nurses said today,

they're being discriminated against,

because the hospital will not allow them

to wear masks and/or gowns, and/or gloves

around AIDS patients.

There were patients that were on, uh...

uh, other units that had AIDS.

And, and that they were having to provide care for 'em.

And we were telling them how to provide that care.

And some would refuse to give care.

[reporter 4] The nurses work on ward 4C,

a family services ward also used, however,

for overflow cases from the AIDS ward.

I have to protect myself.

Not only myself, uh, the, my family,

and also other patients.

And they went to the union,

"We need to make a grievance about this."

"We don't want to have to take care of these people."

[reporter 4] The nurse's lawyer said today...

a recently obtained memo indicates the hospital

accommodates AIDS patients,

as far as their, quote, sexual needs are concerned.

The issue here is, whether or not our clients

are in such close proximity to these AIDS patients

so that there's danger of infection to themselves

and, and to the public.

When the charge nurse went and made her round

to see if he has left,

he was doing this thing.

First of all, you have to understand

that these patients

are far too ill to be having sex.

At the same time, we're a healthcare institution.

We're here to take care of people's health

and their illnesses.

We're not here to police people.

[Cliff] They felt like,

any nurse that had to work with people with HIV

should be able to wear, uh, all the protective clothing,

uh, and equipment that they want.

Everybody should be wearing gloves all the time.

This is a battle

for control over the standard of practice

for the hospital.

[Cliff] The fear was, as a result of this,

no one would be allowed

to provide human touch to these people.

And everything we've done gets dismantled or taken away.

[indistinct chatter]

[EKG beeping]

[garbage man] When I picked out one of the garbage cans,

you know, when I pulled 'em up,

I just feel something go like that.

[interviewer 2] There was a needle

-sticking out of the bag? -Yeah, out of the bag.

[Paul] This was a blood-borne infection.

And you don't want to inject yourself

with someone else's blood.

But it takes one stick.

And if you're unlucky,

then, it could then, you know...

you're dead.

[Alison] You could get stuck with drawing a needle...

you could get stuck

injecting medication.

I had a needle stick. It was indeed scary.

[Sasha] The devices at that time, they...

You would have a huge honkin' needle.

The manipulation of that,

it's very difficult to be perfect.

And that sense of foreboding was horrible.

There are some workers, even in this hospital,

who are really hysterical about the level of risk.

And truly believe that their chances

of becoming infected are enormous.

[bell ringing]

[Hank] It has been a devastating five years.

Nearly 3,000 cases of AIDS have already hit this city.

Half those people have died.

There I am,

one of the first openly gay TV reporters in the country.

The AIDS epidemic was raging.

But the even darker side of this story,

what some are already calling the Plague Years,

still lie ahead.

Oh, god!

Man, I got ... on that arm.

Robinson, lie on your back, it'll be easier.

We were being bombarded

with stuff we hadn't seen before.

[coughing]

[patient 6] Oh, it hurts. It hurts.

Please...

It hurts. Oh, it hurts.

[groans]

[indistinct chatter]

[somber music]

[David] Her tube will not be able

to be connected to a bag

until it's less than 60 ccs a shift.

She still has that 20-gauge in her left forearm

which we started on the 15th.

Um, she's complaining of increased pain.

We need a clean-catch urine on her

if you can possibly get it.

[Paul] From '85 to '87,

we started having the first treatments.

[nurse 2] We want you to drink the medicine.

No.

I'm dying drinking this shit.

[nurse 2] I don't blame you.

The medications have had horrible side effects,

so patients would get terrible rashes,

uh, and sometimes a life-threatening condition.

[Sasha] We didn't know whether it was gonna help or not.

I thought I would last longer than this.

Coming up in June, it's my 26th birthday.

[Paul] And we've learned that HIV is a virus

with a very long incubation period.

So we began to realize

that all the people that tested positive

were not immune.

They were going to get AIDS.

They were going to die.

Um, and so we knew that we had a problem

that wasn't just a few thousand here and there,

but hundreds of thousands.

Over a million in the country.

[tense music]

And...

then the numbers just started shooting through the roof.

[Cliff] We moved to 5A, which was a larger unit.

-I need to still continue PRL... -Oh...

I was operating on so many AIDS patients.

[Paul] It...

felt overwhelming.

People were afraid.

And...

we found ourselves attacking each other.

Everyone was so stressed.

[groaning, whimpering]

Come on, sit down. Sit down, sweetie.

Come on, sweetie. Come on.

How do you do this?

[groaning]

[woman 1 whimpering]

[breathing heavily]

[clicks tongue] You'd go to the post office...

and the guy who'd been behind the counter for years...

-was gone. -Gone.

People were being kicked out of their apartments.

People were, uh, being fired.

Uh, there was a, a guy at a company in San Francisco...

who had died of AIDS,

and they burned his desk in the parking lot.

AIDS is 100% fatal.

And we're still having arguments

about protecting people's rights who've got the disease.

I mean, we gotta be focusing on what we do...

to prevent all of us

from getting the disease and dying.

These wars were going on

all around you.

If we report those who have the virus,

the existing system of confidentiality

will protect them just as well.

[Dr. Mervyn] That's absolutely false.

It's very strange to hear someone say,

"Since it's just in gays and just in IV drug users,

why should we worry about it?"

Fearmongering really was

the, the point of view of the day.

He proposes that carriers should be tattooed...

on the forearm and the buttocks

to keep the disease from spreading.

I don't understand why gays

are opposed to this particular suggestion.

Yeah, there was a whole lot of,

you know, "fuck you", in our feelings.

So, there was a real emphasis, you know,

make sure that you get filmed touching.

[Cliff] Because this is the single,

most powerful message that we can get across.

[Hank] Nurses are subversive.

You know, I didn't know I was being used like that

till you just told me.

And I love it.

[Rita] Back then,

I lived...

on Dolores Street.

And you had your village, you had your tribe.

When I was at the ward...

I realized, as I'm walking around...

I know this person, and I know this person...

and I, I was like...

And, and I can remember...

feeling totally overwhelmed, because...

"Oh, my god, I know all these people.

I know everybody here."

[chuckles]

[lively music]

[reporter 5]Every other Sunday, there is a party on Ward 5B.

Tap show at two o'clock.

[Rita] We would make chicken, turkey,

they loved ham, they loved macaroni salad.

And you might say you don't want no cake,

but when I put it in your face,

"Girl, give me some of that cake."

[lively music]

A 7UP for Room 3.

[Alison]Everyone who could come to that end of that unit

would come down.

[Rita] We'd all sit in the lounge

and eat like a family.

They used to crack me up.

"I'll have a large everything and a Diet Coke."

I'm like, "Honey, this is a AIDS ward,

we don't have anything diet."

[Magee] When people's dignity

is so threatened,

and there's so much fear...

God, you need some ice cream on the unit.

♪ This is the time For getting down ♪

[David] And she was going to all these different bars

to raise money for these things.

[Rita] I was just the head cheerleader of a team.

I've had families tell me...

"This is the first dinner we've had together in 20 years."

[David] When she came,

the patients would come out of their rooms.

They may not have been out all week.

[Rita] We had all these terrible, terrible jokes.

I used to say, "I love you to pieces."

And they'd say, "Well, don't say you love me to death."

[laughs]

[Alison] Where death was so present,

why not bring life and laughter and joy?

-[laughs] -[machine whirs]

-[David] Okay. -I got it, thanks to you.

-I'll be back. -[Harry] I mean,

it's wonderful to make it

a wonderful place where you can go die.

But it doesn't take away from the fact that they died.

[inaudible]

I don't want nobody here to give up.

And I don't think that they will.

But...

maybe they will, I don't know.

The nurses would always tell me who can eat,

who can't eat, who really needs to eat,

or who really needs a hug.

[Rita] Like my friend Shane, he was 23.

And I'll never forget he liked vegetarian food.

And I would get him vegetarian lasagna and bring it to him.

I was like, "Okay."

[Rita] And I would go and sit with him

and he would talk about his family.

[Leah]One night my dad called,

and he said...

"Greg's gay.

He just told me he's gay."

This was 1979,

and we didn't know anybody gay.

My dad was pretty angry

and threw him up against the wall.

So...

[inhales sharply] Um...

I guess he... then he just went in his room or something,

and then left the next day.

Didn't come back.

I grew up believing, and I still do, scripturally,

it's not okay.

Uh, the homosexual lifestyle.

It was very painful for my sister and for...

uh, the rest of the family.

[Rita] He wanted his family there.

And...

it was heartbreaking.

But at the time...

a lot of families had to wrap their head around,

being gay and having AIDS, all at the same time.

And America was not ready for that.

[news theme music playing]

[host 1] This is The AIDS Connection

An All-Night Dialogue,

live from across America.

[female host] And we have the results

of our 900-number survey

for this half hour, in answer to the question,

"Are you convinced that AIDS

cannot be spread by casual contact?"

And it's close.

[Magee] You know, people were worrying about

eating at a restaurant.

What if the chef or the server had HIV?

I remember...

um, being at parties

and asking... uh, people asking, "What do you do for a living?"

And I would say what, what I did, you know?

"I work with people with HIV."

And, people... That was a conversation stopper.

People would just sort of literally back off.

One of my, um, uh, sisters

had, uh, her second child.

And so the first time I went home

to visit my new niece.

And I was very excited to see her.

I hear my sister from the back of the room...

and she's a nurse, a registered RN,

and she's screaming,

"Don't let George breathe on the baby!"

I was in People magazine.

It was in March.

My baby was born in April.

[Rita] So I was very pregnant.

Straight, white female sitting on a bed

with a person with AIDS.

I got hate mail.

I had to get a restraining order at one point,

because...

somebody was threatening me.

All the strides that had been made

in terms of gay rights, up until that time,

were just kind of pushed off the table.

When somebody comes at you and is looking you in the eye,

and is calling you a queer, a faggot,

and a... [bleeps]

[man 5] What would you call it?

[indistinct chatter]

[man 6] Bring it on, man.

Come on.

Bring it on, punk.

[grunts]

[man 6] Bring it on, you fucking faggot!

Bring it on, man.

-Come on! -[man 7] Hit him.

[grunts]

Come on, punk.

[man 7] Shit.

[somber music]

[Alison] People are afraid of the unknown,

and the fear can really escalate.

[reporter 6] Locally, shocked healthcare workers

learned a nurse at San Francisco General

was infected after an accidental needle stick.

[Julie] It's a tragedy

that's happened to a very dedicated

um, hospital worker who was doing everything right.

[Magee] One of us had been stuck with a needle

and that person was now infected with HIV.

I mean, this was...

This was our worst nightmare.

[somber music]

The nurse became known as Jane Doe.

[Cliff] I remember being asked by media people...

"Do you know who this person is?"

And I was glad to be able to say, "No, I don't."

Whoever this person is,

we wanna do everything we can to protect them.

[reporter 7] The odds of contracting the virus,

even after sticking yourself

with an infected needle, are tiny.

But it happened at San Francisco General

to a nurse we'll call Jane.

[Jane] We are chronically fighting for more staff,

we're tired.

Did you have trouble accepting this?

[Jane] Uh, tremendous. I still do.

I still do.

[somber music]

That was just the most awful thing.

[David] I went through a spell

where I was drinking more every night, when I went home.

Coping with it with whatever mechanisms you had.

[Cliff] This could be extremely damaging to

what we're trying to accomplish here.

Nurses were forbidden to wear masks, gloves, and gowns

while in close direct personal contact with AIDS patients.

I.e., cleaning their bodies,

dressing wounds that were dripping,

changing bed linens that were soiled.

There had been this group that had,

for some time, been complaining

that they wanted to wear all the protective clothing

all the time.

[Cliff] And they want the Union and the Department of Health

to support them.

Yeah, they're simply saying,

"Look, for the sake of the AIDS patient,

and for the, for our sake,

the sake of hospital personnel and the public,

um, let's take precautionary measures."

They knew how to use the media,

and now, of course,

they got Congressman Dannemeyer...

to raise the pressure.

[reporter 7] These charges against

San Francisco General Hospital aren't new, but they are strong.

Strong enough that tonight, Congressman Bill Dannemeyer

said the grand jury

should open a criminal investigation.

I think we have a duty to protect...

uh, those healthcare professionals

who are taking care of these patients.

And they felt that any nurse

that had to work with people with HIV,

should definitely be paid more.

[Cliff] All of us.

If that's the case,

the holistic...

uh, model of care, nursing, and social work

that we created together on the ward

would no longer be affordable.

[Alison] If we lost,

will I be able to keep my staff there?

Because we were already viewed as overstaffed.

"Why should they get more?"

Often, I would be down there in the nursing office,

and I'd be fighting.

[indistinct chatter]

[Alison] "You come and see.

How are we going to do it?"

"What, you know? What would you have us do?"

We were being attacked on all fronts.

I mean...

Um, politically, medically, um...

Psychologically, socially.

I mean, it sucked.

[Cliff] And there was a very prominent doctor

at San Francisco General that agreed with them.

Someone else described my risk

as being 12% per year and 49% at the end of five years

of turning positive

for, uh... from occupational exposure.

[whirring]

[Lorraine] I ran a MASH unit.

Blood would always go through to our underwear

and on our abdominal skin,

and it was going round in our eyes and all that.

[reporter 8 ] Dr. Lorraine Day is so afraid

that she dons a space suit every time she operates

in a hospital which has already had one nurse

infected on the job.

Those space suits had been worn by orthopedic surgeons

for years.

Uh, to protect the patient.

[Lorraine] Because then your air you're breathing

wouldn't go into the operating room.

It was taken with a tube outside.

All I did was add a filter of the air

that came in that we were breathing.

That's all.

It looked the same.

[drill whirs]

I did think it was an interesting scientific question

about whether particles of the virus

would be aerosolized in the air.

[Magee] If you were to breathe that in,

would that be a method of transmission?

[Lorraine]There were, I think, 30,000 orthopedic surgeons

in the country at that time.

I was the 12th woman.

And for a woman

to be the head of orthopedic surgery

at a hospital like San Francisco General Hospital,

which, because it's a major trauma hospital,

really unique, uh, at the time.

[Lorraine] I was stuck by my co-surgeon with this,

and fortunately, it only went through two gloves.

It didn't go through three gloves.

And we had patients with the usual risk factors

for AIDS or HIV.

But I didn't know who was infected.

That was the problem.

I think that everyone who is in a position

to touch the patient and deal with their body fluids,

should know.

She, understandably, was worried about that.

How she spoke about it.

Where she went with it.

That's what was really problematic.

[Lorraine] A patient comes to us,

they demand to be taken care of,

but then they say to us, in essence...

"I have this loaded gun under my coat

which can go off and kill you at any moment

and I'm not gonna tell you."

[Magee] She was, you know, a little bit glamorous.

[Cliff] Attractive, dressed well.

If she were to step on your foot with those spiked heels...

You know, it would go right through your foot.

Um, and, you know, and the personality to match.

[Lorraine] It's not patients first, it's doctors.

It is that each individual

has no right to put another person's life at risk.

[reporter 8] In the absence of compulsory testing,

Dr. Day routinely requests all her patients...

to take an AIDS test before she operates.

-[Lorraine] How you feeling? -I'm feeling fine.

[Lorraine]

Yes.

[Lorraine] We can test any patient for any disease

without an informed consent.

Except AIDS.

Which turned out was not...

not politically correct.

Doctors find out they're positive

and say, "I'm not gonna treat them."

It's happened in Shasta County,

it's happened in San Mateo County

here in California.

It's happened in a lot of places across this country.

I never said I would refuse medical care.

[Lorraine] I just think that my life

versus the confidentiality of the patient

should at least be a factor that should be considered.

I never even thought about

refusing to care for an AIDS patient, ever!

[Lorraine] I'm not gonna deny any surgery,

but we need to know what we're dealing with.

Other people who don't know what goes on

in an operating room will say,

"Well, why don't you just take those

same precautions for everybody?"

We can't wear that expensive, bulky equipment on everybody.

[Paul] She became convinced, I think that...

we were forcing her to assume risks

that were going to result in the deaths of...

surgeons everywhere.

We knew, long before AIDS came along,

that something horrible was gonna happen

to that community.

Just in terms of being a community

that would vector

into any kind of communicable disease.

And I have to say, if it hadn't been this,

it would have been something else.

[Lorraine] They do a lot of drugs and they...

They have a lot of alcohol in that community.

They had multiple sexual relationships.

[Harry] In some people's minds,

the bathhouses were just constant orgies,

going on all the time, and that's not true.

But obviously, you had sex.

[Lorraine] A whole lot of them either had AIDS,

or were high-risk for AIDS.

I just wanted half a chance to stay alive.

Why was it bad that I wanted the patient to be tested

for the safety of the healthcare worker?

[ominous music]

[reporter 9] Northern Florida.

Three hemophiliac boys infected with the AIDS virus

are banned from school

in the face of community hostility.

Shortly after they were readmitted,

their home was burned down.

[man 8] I went over there last night.

You can look at it, and obvious the fire started

in the children's bedroom.

Whoever did it was trying to make a point.

[Magee] What was going to be done with information

about who was HIV positive?

There were horrible things happening

in other parts of the country that you would hear about.

Children being discriminated against in their school,

families having to move.

Being ostracized.

[somber music]

[Magee] It was a very scary time around...

uh, the idea of people's identities being known.

[Alison] Up at the nurses' station,

you saw a whiteboard

with patients' names, and we didn't have last names.

Because people could be...

...persecuted.

[reporter 10] Rural Tennessee.

Angry parents fight against

letting a hemophiliac boy with AIDS

into the local public school.

Who's to say that this kid

might get mad at somebody and go bite 'em?

[woman 2] Scratch 'em? I mean, who's to say this?

You don't know what's gonna happen.

It's like putting a loaded gun in the school,

and just hoping and praying it don't go off.

[woman 3] Oh, yeah.

Read that, baby.

Read that.

You're trying to kill everybody else.

Yeah, and then?

But you're not gonna kill my baby!

-[engine revs] -[woman 3] Hey!

[man 9] Go to hell!

[Magee] Could you be thrown out of your apartment?

Would you lose your job?

What if your insurance changed?

Would you not be able to get further healthcare?

It's a concern.

They might lose their job.

But you have to do the right thing.

[Shane]

Just not...

[Asbury] When I was visiting with Greg,

I didn't know if I had...

put myself in a position where

I was going to contract the disease.

I... It was just a scary thing.

[Asbury] Everybody that he knew in San Francisco

called him Shane.

But his family called him Greg.

[Rita] Everybody had nicknames.

And I don't know why.

Like, Doug's name was Doug.

We called him Fluffy.

[Asbury] He was very sick.

But, on visits when he felt good...

we went to the beach.

There was one time we were feeding the birds,

throwing bread out.

[birds cawing]

[Asbury] One bird had a broken foot.

And Greg took it as his mission

to make sure that this bird got food.

Greg's heart was huge.

[Shane]

[Asbury] I remember, at one point,

Greg's dad came to visit Greg at the hospital.

[Rita] I remember Shane feeling like his father didn't like him.

Shane was young.

You know, he would say it like that,

"My dad doesn't like me."

[Asbury] It was not a healthy interaction

between father and son.

Critical parent,

needy child,

and wanting very much to be loved and liked, and...

and I didn't see that happening.

[Shane]

[paper rustles]

[Shane coughing]

[Rita] He was very scared.

He said, "I'm worried about my mom.

I'm worried about things.

I'm worried about Dan."

Dan was his partner.

I didn't know how to tread in that water

of going... [stutters]

You know, having a relationship with Danny,

I didn't know what to do with it.

This was new to me.

The whole gay community was new to me.

And I was still trying to figure it out for myself.

[Reagan] It's time we knew exactly what we were facing.

And that's why I support some routine testing.

I've asked

the Department of Health and Human Services

to determine as soon as possible

the extent to which the AIDS virus

has penetrated our society,

and to predict its future dimensions.

I stood in front of Ronald Reagan in 1987,

in Washington,

when he was giving a speech.

It was the first time

he mentioned AIDS publicly, 1987.

All right? Six years into the epidemic.

I made a note in my reporter's notebook

that night, the night of that speech,

as I'm looking at him, that, that...

I made a note that at that moment,

that he said that word for the first time,"AIDS,"

21,000 Americans had already died.

That's what I remember.

[reporter 11] The members of President Reagan's commission

on the AIDS epidemic

prepared for their first look at the virus that causes AIDS.

There were eight men and five women.

Few of them had any depth of experience.

Either with the virus or the people sick from it.

That included the chairman, James Watkins.

I was working with this really lovely man,

um, who, I think, had his fourth bout

of Pneumocystis pneumonia,

and he had agreed to meet with a representative

from Ronald Reagan's, uh, presidential AIDS commission.

[Magee] And the representative from the commission

had declined to shake the patient's hand.

Nothing hit me harder

than the betrayal of this country.

Nothing is, is worse...

[Hank] Uh, Mayor Dianne Feinstein,

her AIDS budget for the city of San Francisco was bigger

than President Reagan's was for the entire nation.

And that was true for two years in a row.

Hank Plante has the latest tonight

in an exclusive AIDS Lifeline report.

Hank.

I always enjoyed, uh, talking to the bad guys.

[reporter 12] Many insurance companies are worried

about future health benefits they might have to pay

if gay policyholders come down with AIDS.

[Hank] There was a guy who had applied for insurance,

and they couldn't ask him if he was gay.

Because that was against the law in California.

[reporter 13] What's the point of, uh, singling out

hairdressers, and waiters, and, uh...

people who work in non-stressful jobs like that?

So they sent him a questionnaire that said,

"Have you ever worked as a florist,

a hairdresser, or a decorator?"

Classify them into groups,

so they can be charged a fair premium.

-That's the basis of-- -But what's a fair premium for,

for somebody who might have the AIDS virus?

[spokesman] It's whatever risk he chooses--

Would you write a policy for somebody

you knew had the AIDS virus?

No, probably not.

He looked at me and... right into the camera,

and he said, "Why didn't they just ask me

if I could lip-synch to Judy Garland records?"

[chuckles]

We have called this press conference

as a result, and following a recent article

in theSan Francisco Chronicle.

[Magee] The Chronicle wrote an article

that said, "Hey, remember that healthcare worker

that got infected with HIV at San Francisco General?"

Well, Jane Doe's paying out of pocket

for her healthcare costs,

because she doesn't wanna tell her insurance company

that she has HIV.

"The risk of being infected from a single bloody needle

is relatively small.

But try telling that to Jane Doe."

The whole point of the struggle for Jane Doe...

[muted dialogue]

...was to maintain the confidentiality.

There was a rally in the lobby of San Francisco General,

and I was there.

[Magee] To be there was bizarre.

Because... I am Jane Doe.

[Magee] I worked 12-hour night shifts,

and it was the 11th hour.

And I was working with a patient who was really sick

with Cryptococcal meningitis.

So, I pull out the long tube that has a needle at the end.

And I need to dispose of this.

And I went to put the needle

through the rubber port at the end of the bag,

and it went through, it, it...

You know, I didn't aim correctly.

And it went through the bag and into my index finger.

[Magee] This was an absolute puncture

with a needle that was filled with blood.

What do I do now?

I went to the bathroom,

turned on the water,

and, you know, massaged my finger

to try to get my finger to bleed out.

It was nerve-racking.

I had been a nurse for two years.

I'd not had a needlestick.

I remember her coming to me

in my office, and telling me...

With a lot of sympathy, she said,

"Oh, it's always hard the first time."

She was tested, but it takes a while

for the test results to come back.

Within a week or so,

I developed a high fever.

[Magee] I started to worry.

[Alison] I was at work when I heard that she...

was now HIV positive.

And we had to tell her really soon,

because we wouldn't want her to infect...

infect someone else inadvertently.

[Magee] It was a Saturday morning,

and the doorbell rang.

And I could see my nurse manager,

Alison Moed, standing on the sidewalk.

And then I knew.

And I remember the room.

I don't remember what I said.

I said to her...

"I'll never breastfeed."

"I'll never have a child."

[whimpers]

Sorry.

She was a beautiful young person.

[Alison] She was a beautiful young woman who...

who was just starting her life,

who had come to help.

To help these other beautiful young people

who were, you know, attacked in the midst of their lives.

And...

you know...

I couldn't protect her.

You know, what I was really thinking about

was how am I gonna tell my parents.

[somber music]

[Magee] I flew home.

Later on,

after I told one of my brothers,

he came into the house and my father embraced him,

and wept, and said, um...

"I can't... I can't bury her. I can't bury her."

I went back. I needed to be back.

I needed to be... I needed to be, uh...

on a unit.

[Magee] I was desperate and adamant about

holding on to everything that I could.

And one of the things I was, was a nurse.

So, I kind of just threw myself into that.

I drew so much strength

from the example of my patients, from the courage of my patients.

They helped me go on.

And I was so fortunate.

I had made a really good friend in Sasha Cuttler

who was a nurse on 5A.

And I was able to tell him right away.

I just, I just felt like,

"This is, this is so weird. We're, we're both so young."

[Magee] I got a lot of attention. A lot.

You know, I was kind of billed as the innocent victim.

I wanted no part of that.

This idea of like,

"Oh, this, this angel of mercy has been infected

by these, these scuzzy patients."

[Sasha] How she became infected,

it doesn't make her a better person.

The disease doesn't care.

[train rumbling]

[sighs]

[Alison] We would record their deaths here.

Through the end of 1983,

24 patients.

And so, then, in 1984,

117 patients.

We were starting to be very overwhelmed.

[nurse 3]He died in his sleep.

[inhales sharply] [nurse 4] Oh, shit.

[Alison] The nurses gave, and they gave, and they gave.

[machine beeping]

[somber music]

[Ann] A lot of people are in deep problems

with their families, and...

I've never really thought of myself as a parent,

but I do here.

And I find myself, occasionally, calling patients "son."

And I've never done that anywhere.

But I can't help it.

I... I feel like a mother.

[David] Because you were in a such interpersonal level,

that level of loss was there, too.

[somber music]

[somber music continues]

[Alison] I just see so many lives.

As if...

I... If I look at the faces, I see

I see so much life force.

And I, I...

There were so many stories as there are...

so many people doing so many things.

And then... But they're gone.

[Alison] Look at this.

That's '86, '87.

These were all lives that had faces for us.

"Gordon Pennisi.

Michael Waycaster.

James Foote.

Bill Palmatier. Terry Deklats."

These were my friends who were dying.

People have sewn real life into these quilts.

Teddy bears, photographs,

locks of hair, and a lot of love letters.

[Hank] By reporting on it,

I could channel my grief and my anger.

[patient 7] You just didn't know

that there was a virus out there.

And by the time I knew,

I stopped having that kind of risky sex.

And, you know, four years later,

I found out that I was infected from before.

I mean, they were so courageous,

these people,

uh, to go on camera

and to bare their souls in 1986, '87.

People just look at the condition,

and lose sight that there's a person there.

All this equipment, it's like Ringling Bros.,

setting up the lights, sound, and everything.

And saying, "What's it like to have AIDS?"

Basically, that's what we're saying.

"What's your life like?" "Well, I'm dying."

[Hank] But they looked right in the camera and did it.

And I think it was because

they wanted to help other people.

And they wanted to help other people

not get the disease,

and figure out how to cope with it if they had it.

So, I, I remember them,

and I admire them, and I love them

for being able to do that.

Everybody around me died.

Uh, it, it's why today,

I don't have a lot of friends my age.

They're gone.

[Guy] I met Steve on, uh, on Friday the 13th,

at this bar called the Pendulum.

And two weeks later, uh,

Steve moved in, um, to my apartment.

He, he was in great health for the first number of years.

And then one morning he woke up,

and he could not get out of bed.

And he tested HIV positive.

I was so angry that HIV...

was now in my family life.

It was like... As if I had a right.

[Guy] He wasn't yet dying,

but it was just a matter of time.

After that,

how much does the small stuff really matter?

Friend of mine died on the unit.

I took care of him,

wrapped his body, and sent it to the morgue.

You don't wanna go home, and figure out

what Diana Ross was wearing to the Grammys.

It's so trivial.

[Cliff] I saw what a toll it was taking on us.

[Alison] Some people got counseling,

or talked, talked to significant others.

Some people used drugs or alcohol.

It broke my heart to see these people

losing their children.

[somber music]

[woman 3] You need to let go, okay?

Just... [sobs]

...go before Mom and Dad come back, okay?

Just...

Sean and I are here with you, like we've always been.

We're with you, okay?

I've also asked HHS to add the AIDS virus

to the list of contagious diseases

for which immigrants and aliens seeking permanent residence

in the United States can be denied entry.

[people clamor, jeering]

I think it's in our interest as Americans

to reduce the drain on our healthcare system.

You're prepared to tell others that they have to leave

the United States, is that right?

Sometimes you make tough choices in life.

[William] Favor adding AIDS

to the list of diseases that must be quarantined,

56% of the American people answered that, yes...

They wanted to isolate us

and put us... and quarantine us on an island.

Of course, we said, if it was Santa Catalina,

we would go for it.

[Hank] All of that was happening on the outside world.

And so, then, you had this bubble

where people were taking care of people on the ward.

[Rita] Shane ate like a teenager.

And then when he didn't eat,

it was... then, then I got scared.

And... his birthday's coming up.

[Cameron] Shane had only one lung.

His other lung was filling with fluid.

And, uh...

Um, he was gonna have to decide

whether he wanted to continue to live or not.

[Cameron] We talked and he said that,

that the most important thing to him was

to stay alive until his father

could eventually come around to, uh, accepting him,

and hopefully, see him again.

[Asbury] I took my guitar and played for him a few times.

Sweet songs from church that...

I wanted to remind him that God loved him.

And so, I was in the Army, and I was stationed in Germany.

And, um, we were out on bivouac,

actually, out in the field.

And all of a sudden, this helicopter came, landed,

and people are rushing out,

and they come over to me, and they, and they were...

"Your brother's in the hospital.

He's not gonna make it. We're flying you back.

You're on an emergency flight.

We got your bags packed."

They put me on that helicopter,

took me right to the flight line,

put me on an emergency flight, and I was outta there...

rushing to get back to San Francisco.

[Leah] He couldn't breathe.

He was like... [wheezes]

Doctor came in and said,

"We don't even know why he's hanging on.

He's... He should be gone by now.

He's hanging on for something."

Greg's dad, um...

came to the hospital,

and was with the family.

His dad wasn't, like, in the room,

so I took that chance

to tell him,

"Shane needs to know you love him.

And he needs to know you care."

[Rita] He said something about, "Well, I'm here."

And I said, "But he needs to hear your words.

He needs you to say it."

[somber music]

So, my dad had everyone else leave the room.

[Leah] And then he told him,

"You know, Greg,

you're a bigger man than I will ever be.

And I'm proud of you.

And...

You know I love you, and it's okay to go."

[Rita] After we sang "Happy Birthday,"

he was gone.

Just like that.

[Shane]

[church bell tolling]

And I remember on one weekend, it was Saturday,

and we had three services that day.

Then, Sunday morning,

we had our regular church service.

There was another memorial that afternoon.

[light music]

[George] And they came to my church, to MCC church.

And they protested out front with "God hates fags."

"Fags should die."

We're in there mourning the loss of the people

that they're out there complaining against.

[somber music]

[George] It was so hard for us not to want to go out there

and throw stones.

So we went out there and we sang to them.

And they got back in their van and they left.

[somber music]

[David] Occasionally, you would get a minister

pop in and go around and be proselytizing.

I was always amazed at how cruel they could be.

You have someone who's dying,

and they're saying things like, "Repent."

And there were times when we had to ask them to leave.

[David] No, not on our watch.

[car horn honks]

[tense music]

[Cliff] We're here.

It's make or break.

We were told by the attorneys we were working with,

"Prepare for the worst.

This, this may not go very well for you."

[reporter 14]The nurse's lawyer told labor referee,

Timothy Sakamaki,

that AIDS is quote,

"Spreading to the heterosexual community,

and these nurses are in the forefront."

Only linen with blood and feces is being double-bagged.

The rest of the linen

is just treated as normally-soiled linen.

And I feel we should be more cautious with the linen.

And also, that nurses should have the right

to determine when they need to wear a mask based

on common-sense principles.

[Cliff] We were being attacked.

A lot of it was directed at me.

"How can you call yourself a professional

when you're being so reckless,

and... and, you know,

willing to put yourself and other people

in harm's way?"

Now the four nurses are telling us

there is a homosexual hierarchy here,

and that it practices a sort of reverse discrimination.

Majority of the head nurses and supervisors

are lesbians and, uh, homosexuals.

[reporter 15] So, what kind of difference does that make?

Uh, it has a bearing on...

on how the policy is being, uh, made up,

and, uh...

how it's being implemented.

This nurse just, kind of, went off on a rant.

It's like a preferential treatment

for AIDS patients.

I knew there was homophobia in the world,

but not, not among nurses.

[Cliff]Her husband was really kind of pushing the whole thing.

The terminology was that it would frighten them

if the nurse walked in with a mask on.

Their psychosexual social adjustment.

I think it was about more than AIDS, yeah.

I mean, AIDS became a vehicle

to justify people's hatred of gays.

There was all sorts of money being given to the AIDS ward.

[Lorraine] And... Why didn't the other patients

get special things?

Everybody deserves treatment.

Including the pimp who set his hooker on fire.

They all deserve treatment.

But, see... But don't make them heroes.

[Lorraine] They only cared about their own pleasure.

Why did they choose to have sex?

It's like, "Hello? That's what people do."

[William] In these AIDS care centers,

you find out what they're really doing...

is propagandizing the homosexual lifestyle.

I admire their clout,

and their, their ability to con the system

into getting all these federal tax dollars

ostensibly to fight AIDS.

Nurse Bernales also testified that AIDS patients

are free to wander around the hospital anytime they like.

They're free to visit the public cafeteria here.

And they're free to use

the public drinking fountains in the hallways.

They let them go and spit

where we wash our hands, on the sinks.

-Visitation by their lovers... -Yeah.

...24 hours a day ongoing,

and putting people at risk,

and nurses not telling them

the diagnoses of AIDS patients.

I can't comment, it's so absurd. Thank you.

[Cliff] It was so heated and so vehement.

"My wife shouldn't have to do this."

No, she shouldn't. She has a choice.

She can leave.

Members of the Labor Board had specific questions

about practices, what we were doing,

were there policies, were there procedures.

[tense music]

[Cliff] That went on all day.

And I thought it was gonna go on several days.

And the response from the union was,

"That is not only not a union issue,

you have a duty to care."

[calm music]

Any kind of isolation barrier

between the individual who's providing care

and the patient

gets in the way to some extent.

We'd like to avoid any kind of a barrier

unless it's really necessary.

[Cliff] We were vindicated.

We all took oaths.

Nurses cannot, legally, ethically,

refuse to care for anyone.

If it's within our capability to do so,

then we have to do it.

There, there is a risk in this work.

[Magee] It's just part of nursing.

[Guy] You are always gonna work with bodily fluids.

So, if that is a problem,

then, then maybe other... you know,

then accounting may be a better option.

We began to feel like the tide had turned.

[reporter 16] British Health Minister,

Norman Fowler, has come to San Francisco

to study our AIDS care and research.

[Alison] People came to our unit from worldwide

to find out what we were doing.

How or why we weren't afraid.

[crowd applauding]

[Watkins] I didn't realize how little I knew.

We had our own ideological biases

that were unconnected with the facts

surrounding the epidemic.

[light music]

[Guy] It's brought change for how hospitals work.

You don't have to have a hazmat suit

every time you're around an AIDS person.

You don't have to burn their bed because they died.

I'd like to introduce you

-to some of our staff. -Ah, sorry.

[Lorraine] They were having a heyday with all the attention

they were getting.

Except when the cameras were rolling,

they were no different than all the rest of the nurses

at San Francisco General.

Civil service breeds laziness.

[Lorraine] What do we do?

We just stroke them, and cuddle them,

and give them teddy bears. What are we supposed to do?

What, what is it

that they supposedly did that was so fantastic?

I've stayed with a lot of patients when they were dying

when they had no one else.

Well, where was their family?

Where were the other gay guys who had given them the disease?

[somber music]

[Lorraine] Touching them is nothing at all.

You can touch them all you want.

I had their blood on me!

Those nurses on the AIDS ward didn't have

nearly the hazardous duties that we had.

I never saw them portraying us as heroes.

[Guy] One morning he woke up, and he was confused.

Steve made no sense when he was talking.

And eventually, he, uh... he sank into a coma.

He stopped responding altogether.

And, and then,

you know, as it happens, sometimes with people

who are bedbound

and... and, and, and frail

and immunocompromised, then he got pneumonia.

[Guy] I worked on the ward while Steve was there.

And I would sleep,

made a little cot for me, next to his bed.

And so, I would talk to him about...

[sniffles]

"It's a beautiful sunrise.

I'm gonna go to work.

I'm gonna come back as soon as I'm done."

One morning, I woke up, and, um...

and...

he had his eyes open.

He couldn't speak,

but I could tell that he was there.

[breathes sharply]

These aren't tears of sadness,

they're tears of joy.

[Steve] Tears of joy.

You know,

I feel like I've had a second chance.

[sobs]

[breathes heavily]

Um...

Things changed really, really dramatically in 1996.

[reporter 17] The hope comes from a new class of medications

called protease inhibitors.

They knock out the AIDS virus,

so it cannot be detected in the bloodstream.

[Hank]When protease inhibitors came along,

we knew that was the real deal.

I feel like I'm alive because of them.

Bay Area Reporter. It was a paper.

Um, and they ran obituaries,

used to be pages long!

I mean, every... And they came out once a week.

Um...

And I remember the first time when they said,

there were no obits to put in that week.

[David] It had been years since that happened.

[Paul] I remember talking to Marilyn Chase

who was aWall Street Journal reporter,

and tears were coming down.

That was a wonderful moment,

because, finally, it looked like we had something.

[Guy] Now, we, we have deaths,

but not at that same level, so...

it's not over.

I can't retire yet.

[Asbury] We talked on the phone a few times,

Danny and I.

But I didn't stay in touch with him.

It was two or three years after Greg had, had died.

He himself did contract AIDS.

I sent him a letter,

and just...

Um...

[Asbury sniffles]

The day that the letter came back to me,

stamped "Deceased,"

was, um...

was a time that was hard for me...

because I regretted not having the ability

to show Danny the compassion

that I knew he needed just as much as Greg did.

And I didn't know how.

And I always regretted that.

And I didn't wanna forget...

how important it was to reach out

to someone who was hurting like that.

I kept the letter...

unopened,

that I had sent him, that came back.

I still have it.

Stamped "Deceased" on it.

I didn't wanna forget.

I didn't wanna forget how important it is

for human beings to be there for one another.

[door clicks open]

[calm music]

[Rita] Hello!

-I've been looking for you. -[Cliff] So was I.

[Alison] There's a kinship there.

As there is for people who live through any...

devastating experience, so, um...

You know, part of me is still there.

I think there's this whole generation of survivors

who've had this shell shock

that we haven't even dealt with.

Um...

but, I mean, how do you lose most of your friends?

People died,

but we made a difference in the way they died.

We made a difference

in the way the people who loved them were held.

So much in life

is not what you say or what you do,

it's how you make people feel.

And that's the bottom line.

[Rita] It's how you make people feel.

[suspenseful music]

The hysteria, the fearmongering,

and how, you know,

some people politicized it,

and, you know, all those things that...

that if we don't remember that,

that will happen again.

[Paul] The nurses were the real heroes.

They stood up when nobody else would.

And they were willing to take those risks.

Those nurses were colossal.

[sniffles]

Sorry.

I really was so proud...

to be their manager and to be one of them.

Yeah, they did good things.

[piano playing]

["A Human Touch" playing]

♪ You can call it a decision

♪ I say it's how we're made

♪ There's no point in shouting From your island ♪

♪ Proclaiming only Jesus saves

♪ There will always Be suffering ♪

♪ And there will always Be pain ♪

♪ But because of it

♪ There'll always be love

♪ And love, we know, It will remain ♪

♪ Everybody gets lonely

♪ Feel like it's all too much

♪ Reaching out For some connections ♪

♪ Or maybe Just their own reflection ♪

♪ Not everybody finds it

♪ Not like the two of us

♪ Sometimes all anybody needs

♪ Is a human touch

♪ Everybody wants a holiday

♪ Everybody wants To feel the sun ♪

♪ Get outside and run around

♪ Live like They're forever young ♪

♪ Everybody wants To be beautiful ♪

♪ And live life their own way

♪ No one ever wants To let it go ♪

♪ No matter What they do or say ♪

♪ Everybody gets lonely

♪ Feel like it's all too much

♪ Reaching out For some connections ♪

♪ Or maybe Just their own reflection ♪

♪ Not everybody finds it

♪ Not like the two of us

♪ Sometimes all anybody needs

♪ Is a human touch

♪ Sometimes all anybody needs

♪ Is a human touch

["A Human Touch" playing]

♪ Everybody gets lonely

♪ Feel like it's all too much

♪ Reaching out For some connections ♪

♪ Or maybe Just their own reflection ♪

♪ Not everybody finds it

♪ Not like the two of us

♪ Sometimes all anybody needs

♪ Is a human touch

♪ Everybody gets lonely

♪ Feel like it's all too much

♪ Reaching out For some connections ♪

♪ Or maybe Just their own reflection ♪

♪ Not everybody finds it

♪ Not like the two of us

♪ Sometimes all anybody needs

♪ Is a human touch

♪ Sometimes all anybody needs

♪ Is a human touch