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Former Wales rugby captain Gareth Thomas has publicly thanked HIV nurses for the support they have provided to him and others with the virus, adding that he had “never met a bad nurse”.
Speaking at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress 2024, Mr Thomas urged nurses in the room to continue to use their positions and knowledge to reduce stigma surrounding HIV and tackle misinformation.
“I feel that people who work as HIV specialist nurses have such an important role to play and such an important part to play”
Gareth Thomas
During his keynote address, Mr Thomas shared his story of coming out as gay in 2009 –becoming the world’s first openly gay professional rugby player.
A decade later, in 2019, Mr Thomas publicly announced that he is HIV positive, after feeling backed into a corner by blackmailers and tabloid journalists who found out about his diagnosis.
He then set about on a mission to “break the stigma” around the condition, which he now does through his campaign group Tackle HIV.
Asked why he wanted to speak at the nursing congress, Mr Thomas said: “I have a huge appreciation for people who dedicate their working time and their life to enhance and to make other people lives better.
“And also it was a great opportunity for me, to be given the privilege to be able to say to a group of people who might not get this as often as they should… thank you.
“Not just from me individually, but certainly on behalf of a group of people that I’m very proud to represent, and that’s the HIV community.
“I feel that people who work as HIV specialist nurses have such an important role to play and such an important part to play.”
Mr Thomas said there were certain nurses who had become like an “extension of my family” since his HIV diagnosis.
In particular, he wanted to thank Stewart Attridge, an HIV clinical nurse specialist in Cardiff who was the first person who provided care to him.
“When I first met him, I kind of described it as I was a messed up jigsaw and he helped me find the corners first,” said Mr Thomas.
“He [then] helped me fill in the pieces, to be able to live my life and to have the strength to allow my family in and allow my friends in and eventually allow the public in.”
Later asked what nurses could do to support his mission, Mr Thomas asked them to “stand up” to any HIV-related stigma or discrimination when they encountered it.
He said: “I have never, ever in my journey through HIV come across a bad nurse.
“For me, knowing what exists outside these doors in areas, I feel like whether it be in work, or whether it be out socially, I feel like this is an important topic that kind of needs discussion, but it needs to be discussed in the right way.
“So, I feel if ever you overhear, or if ever you’re part of a discussion that you feel it is adding to stigma, where it is adding to negativity, the discrimination, the wrong information… to stand up and to have the ability to use your knowledge to correct people to make sure that the stigma doesn’t continue and we can reach our goals of entering new cases of HIV.
“Because it’s only with the knowledge that people in this room have are we going to be able to get to that.”
Mr Thomas is supporting the target to end new HIV transmissions in the UK by 2030.
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