Harry displays his mother’s kindness at HIV hospital
Prince meets patients on moving visit to clinic where Diana changed attitudes to Aids
PRINCE HARRY carried on his mother’s legacy of breaking down the stigma around HIV yesterday, when he met patients at a specialist hospital that Diana, Princess of Wales visited 17 times.
The Prince, 31, held hands with HIVpositive patients at the Mildmay hospital in east London and heard stories from staff about his mother’s public and private visits.
The Princess helped change attitudes to HIV when she shook hands with a terminally ill patient and kissed him on the cheek at Mildmay in 1989.
Despite today’s increased awareness of HIV, the stigma around it remains, and Prince Harry is determined to tackle it. He told staff he would love to be able to visit the hospital in secret, as his mother did, but said it would be impossible. Kerry Reeves-Kneip, director of fundraising, told the Prince about his mother’s 14 secret visits to the hospital. He replied: “She used to sneak in and out unknown. Nowadays, Twitter – no chance.”
The Prince’s charity, Sentebale, helps children with HIV in Lesotho, but this was the first time he had visited an HIV hospital in the UK.
The memory of the Princess loomed large over yesterday’s visit. In the Diana, Princess of Wales board room, the Prince signed a visitor’s book beneath a signed photograph of his mother wearing the tiara that the Duchess of Cambridge wore to a diplomats’ dinner earlier this month. Mrs Reeves-Kneip told him: “She came at such an important time. Before she came here the local barbers wouldn’t cut the hair of people who worked here, the banks wouldn’t handle our money, dentists wouldn’t treat the staff and bricks were being thrown through our windows all the time. But after the picture of her shaking hands with our patient and kissing him on the cheek went global, things changed.”
She also told the Prince that during one of his mother’s visits “there was a phone call from the school saying one of you had climbed on to the roof ”.
“That was probably me,” said the Prince. When he was told his mother had “found it amusing”, he said: “Phew, that was lucky.”
The Prince visited the wards where the hospital has 26 inpatient beds, and held hands and chatted with some of the most seriously ill patients. Most are being treated for brain impairment caused by HIV, which is usually reversible, and many have spent months in an intensive care ward before being sent to Mildmay for rehabilitation.
Mrs Reeves-Kneip said: “He met one of our sickest patients, and he found it quite moving to see just how ill people with HIV can be. One of the people he met is a 26-year-old woman who met Princess Diana at Great Ormond Street Hospital when she was two years old and HIV positive. She told the Prince she sat on his mother’s lap and remembered how it was and how she cuddled into her and he said ‘I remember that too’.” The hospital did not allow any of the patients to be photographed because most are too ill to give consent. Many have not told their families they are HIV positive.
Mildmay is celebrating its 150th anniversary. It is a charity, though it receives some NHS funding. The Prince was asked to cut an anniversary cake, and looked a little unsure how to tackle it. “I don’t cut cakes much,” he said. “We normally plant trees.” As he left he was given a picture of his mother with Martin, the HIV patient she kissed in 1989, who died a week after her visit.
‘Before Diana came here the local barbers wouldn’t cut the hair of people who worked here’