‘The Truth About HIV’

In 2017 Mildmay Hospital were proud to feature in the BBC One programme ‘The Truth About HIV with Dr Chris van Tulleken. This programme was first broadcast on Thursday 25th May at 9pm.

Unfortunately this programme can no longer be viewed although the clips below are still available.

Imagine if we could create a movement – clip: Prince Harry Interviewed at Mildmay

Dr Chris asks HRH Prince Harry – Why did you want to take this cause on 

When Mildmay was first contacted about the possibility of taking part in a BBC documentary about HIV, we were very keen to help in any way we could. We felt it was so important to increase public awareness and understanding around HIV and as soon as we met the team producing the programme at Sundog Pictures  we knew we were in safe hands.

Unfortunately, for many people living with HIV, stigma is still a cruel reality. We knew it would be challenging and perhaps not possible to find a patient who was willing to talk about their own experience and how Mildmay has helped them. We felt very privileged when Ade, a client who attends our Day Services, agreed to take part in the filming at Mildmay. It all came together thanks to an excellent production team and to the professionals at Mildmay who featured in the programme-our Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapist, Day Service team, volunteer Keith (on the piano!), and all of Mildmay’s staff who worked around the filming, enabling it to take place at our busy hospital.

In the programme Dr Chris meets Ade who is living with devastating health complications caused by her late HIV diagnosis. We see how the specialist treatment and rehabilitation at Mildmay has been helping Ade to learn to walk and improve her speech and movement. 

We were really thrilled to learn that HRH Prince Harry, who has done so much to encourage HIV testing and challenge stigma, would be interviewed for the programme. Even more exciting was that this interview would take place at Mildmay!  Ade was not expecting Prince Harry to walk into her music therapy session and her reaction was magical -it was a very special surprise! What you don’t see is that Prince Harry also popped in to say hello to some of our other clients – such visits do more than words can express and make a real difference in so many ways.

Our hope was that this programme went some way to raise HIV awareness, fight stigma and encourage testing as well as change some hearts and minds.

BBC One 9pm 25 May