Search results
You are looking at 1 - 1 of 1 items for :
- Author: Tommy Dickinson x
- Manchester History of Medicine x
- Refine by access: User-accessible content x
As part of the United Kingdom’s response to the escalating HIV/AIDS crisis
during the 1980s, special wards and community-based services were
established to care for people living with HIV/AIDS (PWHA). Much of the
pioneering and innovative care developed at these centres can be attributed
to nurses. However, UK nursing history has hitherto neglected to tell their
stories. This chapter rectifies this omission by drawing on a wealth of
source material including previously unseen, enlightening, and frequently
moving oral histories, as well as archival and news media sources, to
explore the actions and perceptions of the UK nurses who cared for PWHA,
alongside the reflections of PWHA and their loved ones who received this
care.
This chapter reveals how assertive PWHA took control of their own
care, often becoming experts on their condition – a phenomenon that
challenged ideas of medical paternalism by reclaiming decision-making power
in the name of the patient. We explore questions of ethics and
socialisation by analysing how nurses were similarly tasked with deciding
what actions were permissible in times of crisis – decisions made along the
frequently blurred lines that this crisis drew between private and
professional lives. Appreciating the personal draw that HIV/AIDS care had to
nurses who identified as queer in particular, and the sense of duty this
often evoked, offered a meaningful way of interpreting the research gathered
for this chapter. Last, this makes an important contribution to the
documented history of nurses’ experiences and constructions of the care of
individuals belonging to stigmatised groups.