‘We were trying to save people’s lives’
As a volunteer at AIDS Vancouver and a nurse at St. Paul’s Hospital, Michael Welsh was at the epicentre of AIDS care in the 1980s.
I moved to Vancouver from northern Alberta in 1974, when I was 27. By 1981, I was working as a nurse at St. Paul’s, the hospital downtown. We were one of the first places in Canada to treat patients with HIV/AIDS, though we didn’t know what it was yet.
AIDS Vancouver was formed two years later to disseminate information about this illness that was already such a serious concern in New York and San Francisco. I attended a public forum and decided to volunteer: I became the first coordinator of support services. The organization was talking to gay men about safe sex and using condoms, something I adopted immediately. Being aware of the possibility of transmission and its impact made me cautious. But I also think there was an aspect of luck. There were times when I wondered if I’d exposed myself to risk. Taking an HIV test always came with some concern for the result. I might have felt even more vulnerable if I hadn’t been so informed and involved.
There was still a lot we didn’t know about how the disease was transmitted, but we were aware of how virulent it was, how it devastated people within months. It presented a real challenge within a hospital environment: how do we deal with the infection? How can we deliver sensitive care to patients and not just shove them into unnecessary isolation?
There are a few patients who stand out in my mind, even a er all these years. I remember one guy—he was so incredibly sick. His mother was profoundly faithful to him but was hiding his illness from their family back in Alberta. As a result, she was alone here. Before he died, I spent time with them and brought in books about things that interested him, like architecture and Italy.
My own mother supported me and the work that I did—she was a nurse, too. Caring for AIDS patients, I saw first-hand how critical that support could be. Some people were totally cut off from their parents or siblings. Sometimes hospital visitation became very difficult if the family didn’t want to be there or acknowledge a patient’s partner. One of the weekly support programs that we ran at AIDS Vancouver was for family and friends, to help them through the process.
Running the helpline was among my main responsibilities during my first couple of years with the organization. It was really just a little office in my basement. A er my shi at the hospital, I’d come home and check the calls, return them if people le numbers, and answer the line directly if somebody rang. I wanted to listen to callers’ stories, get useful information out into the community and try to talk people down from this cliff of fear. But it did interfere with my personal life—dating, certainly. I couldn’t devote my time to anyone while also answering the phone at any moment.
My friend Tim was part of the Buddy Support System, where a volunteer is assigned to help a person with AIDS. He later became a client when he got sick. We met in the early ’80s, dancing at a club called Playpen Central. We dated for a while and then continued as friends. I think Tim wanted more, but I wasn’t able to give that to him. He was such a special guy—very considerate, very sweet, very reserved. I was his executor when he died, and also for a number of friends and clients. It was emotionally challenging, but the least I could do was wrap up their lives for them. I had a couple of friends who always said they didn’t want to get old. Tim was one of them, and he died in October 1989, at 39. I don’t think that’s what he meant, you know?
I le AIDS Vancouver in 1989. I had to back away. For years a er, I couldn’t go near anything having to do with AIDS—candlelight memorials, the movie Philadelphia. It had been a very intense six years, days and evenings and weekends. And there was the frustration of going to the provincial health minister for funding and being told our safe-sex pamphlets were filth. There we were, trying to save people’s lives, and the government didn’t even want to put a dollar on the table.
In many ways, I feel like I’m a connection to a generation of men’s stories because so many people died so young. I’ve been given this life, all these extra years. That’s why it’s really important to remember these guys, to say their names once in a while and to think about them. And to be thankful I’m still here.