“She’d made it her goal to help shatter the myths around transmission of the virus and to do whatever she could to help in this dreadful crisis. Princess Diana visiting a patient at the London Lighthouse October 1996

In his recent memoir, The Boy Who Sat By The Window, he wrote of coming face to face with Diana on one such private visit. She made several visits to the London Lighthouse hospice in West London, both publicly and privately.ĭavid Hodge worked at the reception desk. Related: Prince Harry vows to continue Diana’s HIV work Diana officially opened the UK’s first HIV/AIDS unit, at London’s Middlesex Hospital, in 1987.Īuthor Andrew Morton, in his 1992 book, Diana, wrote that the Princess, photographed holding the hand of someone with HIV, did “more than anyone alive to remove the stigma surrounding the deadly AIDS virus… While she was not able to fully articulate it, Diana had a humanitarian vision for herself that transcended the dull dutiful traditional royal engagements.” In this context, Princess Diana’s decision to visit AIDS hospices, and to be photographed shaking hands with patients, was groundbreaking and powerful. Many were ostracized by their friends and families for having what the world regarded as a “gay disease.” Those impacted-primarily gay men-often suffered slow, debilitating illnesses before their almost inevitable death.

There was no effective treatment and tremendous stigma. It’s hard to remember how frightening AIDS was when it first began to cut people down in the 1980s. Princess Diana and AIDS awareness Princess Diana visiting patients suffering from AIDS at the Hospital Universidade in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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