Normalising testing would help banish the stigma of HIV - Let's build on all the advances that have transformed care since the bleak days of the 1980s

摘要

The first person I met whom I knew was living with HIV was a woman who wanted regular pastoral visits from a priest. At the time, I was on what was to be a ten-year break from nursing to fulfil my childhood desire to be ordained as a priest. Due to the stigma of HIV, the woman was too frightened to see her local priest but I was based in the next parish. When I met with her, I found that, like so many people in her position, she had questions and fears that she wanted help to address.