At a special naming and dedication ceremony held this morning the HIV clinic at the West London Centre for Sexual Health was relaunched as the Nkosi Johnson unit. The renaming came about following a competition within the unit held over a year ago. Choking back tears, the competition winner Lesley Weston, receptionist at the 400 patient-strong clinic, said “Nkosi did so much to break down barriers, prejudice and discrimination of people with HIV, this is why I wanted to name the unit in his memory.”
Nkosi Johnson, who captured the hearts of millions when he spoke at the opening ceremony of the watershed 13th International AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa back in July 2000 was considered South Africa’s longest surviving child born HIV-positive. To an audience of 10,000 and a television audience of 60 million, Nkosi, in a speech he had written himself, talked about his personal experience of HIV and the wider issues of AIDS in South Africa. He died almost two years ago at twelve and a half years of age.
His foster mother Gail Johnson, who flew in from Johannesburg for the event, said, “It never ceases to amaze me just what an impact my son made on the world. He became an international icon and little hero quite unintentionally, but he was determined to show the world that there is absolutely no difference between an infected and uninfected person. He so dearly wanted a world that would just accept HIV infected people – his legacy will live on, now, at the HIV unit and I thank the staff for honouring Nkosi in this way.
Gail Johnson is now the director of Nkosi’s Haven, a safe environment where HIV-positive women can live with their children and the prevailing culture of the normality of HIV infection, acceptance of the disease and good nutrition facilitate the women and children to live fulfilling, healthy lives.
Dr. John Wright of the Nkosi Johnson unit who has worked extensively in South Africa said “We chose Nkosi because he fought to raise awareness of the stigma facing people with HIV. Even in the western world, people are still faced with prejudice and ignorance. We hope that Nkosi’s spirit will help us overcome this.”
Currently 15% of the patients at the Nkosi Johnson are black Africans. This percentage is increasing all the time and the unit expects to see many more African patients in the coming years as all black Africans will be offered HIV tests at first screening for sexually transmitted infections by the end of 2004.
Susan Cole, patient information promotion officer at NAM, has been a patient at the clinic for the past year. She said “Nkosi has been an inspiration to all HIV-positive people across the globe. Being HIV-positive in London is a very different experience to being HIV-positive in the 95% of the world which does not have access to life-saving treatments. Yesterday the US government announced that it intends to spend 76 billion dollars on the war against Iraq; think what could happen if just a proportion of this money was spent on making treatments possible for the rest of the world.”
She added “I have never been disappointed in my choice of clinic, I have nothing but praise and admiration for all the incredible staff.”
The clinic is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9.00-4.30pm and Wednesday 1.30-4.30pm.