Monday, 2 December 2024
Cell Block Theatre, Darlinghurst
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Bujari gamarruwa

Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

I greet you in the Gadigal language of the Eora Nation, as I pay my respects to Gadigal Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people present.

In his review of a new book documenting the years of the HIV/AIDs crisis, entitled Critical Care, Justice Michael Kirby referred to “the special challenge (of that time) coping with patients needing care, often when they were profoundly sick and dying; where no vaccine was available; and no drugs were effective at first to turn the tide.”[1]    Whilst these factors put pressure on our medical services’ ‘frontline’, Michael noted that  “in Australasia, healthcare professionals … rose to the occasion.”

The word 'frontline' is not my description. It was how people felt here at St Vincent’s who cared for patients with a disease that was fast becoming an epidemic, for which there was little known treatment and certainly no cure.  

In 1982, having returned from a conference in Haiti and alerted to this new disease, Professor Ron Penny AO and his team at St Vincent’s Hospital, including Professor Debbie Marriot, diagnosed and began treating Australia’s first HIV/AIDS patient.

And so it was that this area of Sydney became the epicentre for HIV/AIDS diagnosis throughout the country, leading the Hospital, through the initiative of the Sisters of Charity’s Director of Nursing, Sister Clare Nolan, and backed by the Board, to establish Ward 17 South.

Ward 17 South, opened 40 years ago, was Australia’s first dedicated unit for the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients,  which together with St Vincent’s Sacred Heart hospice, cared for up to 50 new admissions a month. It was, in effect, Australia’s ‘Ground Zero’ and is estimated to have treated at least half of all Australia's HIV patients. 

To put that achievement in context, in its peak period, between 1983 and September 1996, when the new highly active anti-retroviral therapies were introduced,[2] 16,000 Australians were diagnosed with HIV, 7000 with AIDS. Sadly, in those early years in particular, many AIDS patients lost their battle with the disease.

The AIDS epidemic brought community fear, intense public messaging (you will remember the ‘Grim Reaper’ ads) and, too often, ignorance and discrimination.  The decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1984 was a long overdue step, signalling the legal and wider community acceptance of those citizens who – in the language of those days - were ‘gay’.

Today, in commemorating this 40^th anniversary, we remember those affected by or who succumbed to the disease, and we are delighted to have David Polson AM, HIV ambassador, St Vincent’s community representative, and Qtopia Museum Chair, one of the Ward’s early patients, present today.

To the Sisters of Charity; the clinicians of St Vincent’s Hospital, past and present, whose legacy is the development of Australia’s world-leading field of immunology, and to the dedicated staff of Ward 17 South, some here today, our community extends a heartfelt thank you.

No matter how ill people were, no matter how hard it was working in ‘unchartered waters’, as Sister Nolan described it, you continued to treat each patient with patience, with love and with respect.

I understand, when the daily work of the ward became overwhelming, you were rallied by the words of the late Sister Margaret Mines who said: “We’re here to do the hard stuff. It’s because it’s hard that we should do it.”

The world-class care offered by St Vincent’s set the standard for Australia’s world-leading response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  

While Ward 17 South closed in 2007 – which is a testament to everyone here - AIDS continues to impact populations in many parts of the world.[3]

Today, St Vincent’s delivers the largest HIV service in Australia, offering accessible clinical care to all and successfully treating members of the NSW community and further afield, through world-best practice, research, testing and education.

This institution continues to be at the forefront of immunology, working with partners, including the Kirby Institute, to treat HIV and emerging infections, and to make the scientific and medical breakthroughs of the future.

To St Vincent’s Curran Foundation donors and supporters here today, we extend our gratitude.  The Foundation was among those who provided that all important financial support in those early years, including for the Centre for Immunology. Its work has continued as we mark the Foundation’s 40^th anniversary this year, supporting the new heart lung transplant program, and the first methadone clinic. Your continued generosity enables vital ongoing research and the provision of dignified care to all who need it at St Vincent’s.  

Thank you to the Sisters of Charity, St Vincent’s Hospital and the St Vincent’s Curran Foundation. This is a chapter of medical and social history which is integral to the history of St Vincent’s and its supporters.   The care, compassion, courage and generosity we saw in those years is embedded in the ethos of the Hospital.  We are a very fortunate community to have you.     

[1] Critical Care: Nurses on the frontline of Australia's AIDS crisis, Geraldine Fela, published July 2024: https://unsw.press/books/critical-care/

[2] In 1996, the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) or combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) marked a new era in the treatment of HIV

[3] https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/hiv-aids