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HIV

People's stories

Aged 36-40

Interview 12

Interview 12

Age at Interview: 38
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 24
Background: A gay man of British/Irish descent who works full-time and is in a long-term partnership.

Brief outline:He suffered from severe diarrhoea and peripheral neuropathy while taking an earlier combination of anti-HIV drugs, but he currently takes nelfinavir, 3TC and abacavir with few side effects. He has had to cope with HIV-related illness, depression and mania at various times in his life.

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Believes that the high level of service he gets from the NHS will not last.
Print I mean I think one thing that strikes me is how good my services are, HIV services, HIV medical services. I mean I don't use… and very rarely use any of the other services that went along with it. And they are very good, I mean contrast it to the chronic, other chronic disease areas, like my parents have both got heart disease and just like… they treat you a load of rubbish you know, because the services just can't cope. And, but on a… I've never had to wait more than half an hour or so for… I mean two hours once because they lost my notes and they didn't know I was there. But you know, I'm seen very promptly, I've always had an appointment available, I've got the latest drugs, you know, everything met to my needs. And I just don't think that that's going to be sustainable, that… you know, the number of people with HIV in this country is rising exponentially and that's not a failure of prevention campaigns actually. I think it's how remarkable how steady the number of infections in this country is you know. And who's going to pay for it? It's going to become an issue sooner or later that so much money is spent on anti HIV drugs, it really, really is.

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