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But 11 years later, Oberto said a new HIV clinic created by the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøPeople With AIDS (PWA) Foundation and online HIV health-care provider, Freddie, is working to make stories like his rarer. Oberto himself is part of PWA, in charge of referring people for care.

“I was in that situation and now I’m finally seeing that there is hope,” he said.

The one-room clinic, located on the third floor of the PWA’s four-storey building in Moss Park, offers in-person care on Wednesdays and virtual appointments all week to anyone living with HIV at no cost, allowing those who are uninsured to still get the treatment they need.

It’s one of the many services that PWA offers to people living with HIV out of its Queen East space, including a canteen for visitors to eat a free meal on the ground floor and a large communal space on the second floor.

Meanwhile, the clinic is part of Freddie’s shift toward providing more in-person care. Founded in 2020, the provider has mainly provided care virtually, for HIV treatment or prescriptions for preventative medication like PrEP. PWA and Freddie are providing funding.

Since opening at the beginning of July, the clinic at the PWA has seen 16 new patients. Although a small figure, the clinic operators say a majority of the patients are uninsured newcomers or unhoused people in Toronto, showing the need for this type of service.

“We are bridging all the gaps to prevent people falling into the cracks and stopping their HIV care,” said Oberto.

Before the clinic opened, Oberto said PWA was only able to refer clients to other services — although he noted that there are few other clinics that offer free or low-cost care to a wide net of patients. Now the foundation can help clients get medication or blood work from its own building, or have one of the Freddie-affiliated doctors working at the clinic send a request to a local pharmacy for those accessing the clinic outside of the GTA.

For Cesar, who has been going to the clinic for the past couple weeks, the in-person service has been “really nice” — both as someone living with HIV and as a recent immigrant from Colombia. The Star agreed to only use his first name since he isn’t open about his illness with everyone in his life.

The 43-year-old already visited the PWA often — the foundation is one of the Toronto’s largest support agencies for people living with HIV — so the fact the clinic is in the same space has been convenient.

“You can go to the foundation and do some other things there while you’re waiting for your appointment,” he said.

Cesar has also found the clinic’s staff to treat him without judgment.

“They used to make jokes about gay people and about all this stuff,” he said while talking about visiting doctors for his HIV in Colombia.

“But when I went (to the PWA clinic), I found it was really professional, without the stigma. And I felt that I could speak freely about my situation.”

Dr. Caley Shukalek, the chief medical officer at Freddie, said patient feedback like Cesar’s has been “very positive” over the past few weeks.

“It’s meeting and exceeding all of our expectations in terms of what is being offered,” said Shukalek. 

The doctor added that providing stigma-free care for those living with HIV is key.

“All patients who are living with HIV acquired it through living their lives, which we all do,” he said. “We all have behaviours that are associated with things that maybe we don’t want to happen.”

The PWA clinic is one of five in-person services Freddie has opened in the past nine months, with clinics in Calgary and Saskatchewan as well.

In the coming months, Shukalek and Oberto said they hope to see the clinic expand its services, primarily by offering in-person appointments more than one day a week.

“In these past four weeks, we have booked the full consultation, so there are people who have to wait,” Oberto said. “So we would love to have a doctor every day here.”